


The Siren

by emmagnetised



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Brooklyn, F/M, Friendship, Gen, History Fic, Multi, Multiple narrative, Music, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Romance, Spies & Secret Agents, Strategic Scientific Reserve, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2020-12-30 21:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 62
Words: 452,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21146762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmagnetised/pseuds/emmagnetised
Summary: Austrian-born Alice Moser is new to Brooklyn when she meets and befriends a small blonde kid called Steve Rogers. Years later tragedy puts an ocean between them. When they meet again everything is different - Steve is about to go to war, and Alice is going to make the SSR an offer they can't refuse: her services as an undercover agent within the very heart of Nazi Germany.The path is already written. The whole world knows the stories of Captain America and the Siren. Or do they?





	1. PART ONE - Chapter One

**Part One: Children**

** _~ I listen to the fleeting sparks in history_ **  
_ ** Souls who sing to those around them – and me** _  
_ ** I crave them** _  
_ ** I save them** _  
_ ** Fruit of the eternal apple tree. ~** _

* * *

**Chapter One**

1930

Brooklyn Junior High School was a tall, pale-bricked, rectangular building with bars over the windows and a sun-bleached flag hanging from the flagpole out front. On a cold, bright day like today, sunshine gleamed off the windows and made the building stand out against the pale blue sky.

Standing in the middle of the bustling courtyard, Alice Moser squinted up at the building for a few moments. She'd been here last month with her mom for registration, but the school seemed a lot larger now it was packed with students and teachers and parents. A group of older kids barged past and jostled her sideways. The air was loud with shouts and laughter.

Alice looked over her shoulder to where her mom and baby brother had farewelled her at the black gates, but it was impossible to see if they were still there amidst the throng of mothers in their Sunday best and fathers wearing stiff suits and stiff smiles as they waved off their children.

Alice took in a breath, straightened her shoulders, and strode deeper into the pack of bustling students until she found the registration line. A few of the other kids in line glanced her way before losing interest. Alice's gut churned and she smoothed down her uniform: a collared white blouse with a tie, and a long grey skirt over stockings. Her mom had bought the uniform second-hand from an older student whose family they'd met at their new church, and her step-father had managed to darn all the holes and threadbare parts, but she still felt as if she stuck out like a sore thumb.

As the line moved forward, Alice looked around. The noise in the courtyard was only getting louder as the clock ticked closer towards the starting bell, and just with a quick glance around she could see that most kids here already knew each other; she watched them run across the courtyard toward each other and clap each other on the back, talking animatedly and waving their hands. A group of girls waved in Alice's direction, and after a second of panic she realized they were waving to another girl who'd walked up behind her.

She caught a snippet of their conversation as they joined up in a rush of excited voices: "- did you do over your summer break?"

Alice tried not to let her stomach drop, even though she found herself glancing to her left at the large building across the street from Brooklyn Junior High: that was Brooklyn Elementary, where most of these students had graduated from last year.

In the fold of her skirts, she crossed her fingers. _Surely I'm not the only new student. _She'd only moved from the Bronx, but right now it felt like another universe.

"Who are you, my dear?" Alice glanced up to see she'd reached the end of the line, where a bespectacled woman with feathery hair and a clipboard and pencil was looking down at her.

"Alice Moser," she blurted out. The woman glanced down at her clipboard with a slight frown. "I registered late but the office said it would be okay-" Alice cut off when she noticed the same group of girls from before glancing her way with funny looks on their faces.

"Not to worry," the woman said with a smile. "We've had lots of those this year."

Alice nodded nervously. That didn't surprise her. What with the market crash last year, she supposed her family wasn't the only one that had to move suddenly. Alice felt a pang of longing for her old house, then squashed it. _You'll love Brooklyn. _That's what her stepfather kept saying. She was still waiting for it to come true.

"Found you!" the woman stated, ticking the paper on her clipboard. "You've got ten minutes to head toward your homeroom before the bell rings. You'll be in… 3B." She started to move away, but then the woman added: "That's an unusual accent you've got there." Alice bit the inside of her cheek. "Are you from Canada?"

Alice shook her head. "No. Austria."

The woman's eyes lit up. "Oh, I've always wanted to see a kangaroo!"

Alice stared at the woman for a second, then sighed and decided it wasn't worth it. She turned away and strode toward the main entrance to the school building. She'd checked the school map before coming, so she knew exactly how to get to 3B.

As she walked away from the registration woman she found the group of girls from before standing directly in her path, chatting and giggling in a huddle. They'd been eavesdropping. Alice's mom's words of encouragement echoed in her mind: _just smile, say hello, and you'll make friends in no time._

She flashed a nervous smile at the five girls. "Hello," she said. "I'm Alice, I just moved here from-"

"Sorry," said a tall dark-haired girl with her arm slung around another girl's shoulders. She smiled at Alice, but it didn't feel like a smile. "I don't understand what you're saying."

Alice blinked. "Sorry, I – I was just going to ask if–"

"Nope," said another girl with a smile playing at her mouth, "still nothing. Can't you talk right?"

_Oh._ Where before Alice had been standing with hunched shoulders, nervously fingering the leather strap around her books, she suddenly straightened. Something about the laughing eyes and smothered smiles of the girls in front of her had washed away her nerves.

She swallowed, and then said in a crystal-clear Brooklyn accent: "I was saying that I just moved here from the Bronx, and I'm looking for some interesting people to be friends with." The girls' eyes widened at the abrupt change in accent. "Don't worry about it though, I'll keep looking."

The girls glanced at each other, wide-eyed. Alice adjusted her book strap and strode forward again, her face calm and her chin high.

As she shouldered past them she switched back into her natural Austrian accent to say: "I can talk however I want to. I just like this better."

The girls erupted into whispers once Alice had walked past them. Alice didn't look back. As she kept walking toward the school doors, she felt the burn of satisfaction soothe the hurt sting of rejection. Things like that didn't hurt so much nowadays, or at least she'd gotten used to hiding the hurt – after five years living in New York, she was accustomed to blending in. It was more when people made fun of her mom's accent that she got really mad. Her mom couldn't switch and change and mimic like Alice could, and adults could be a lot meaner than kids.

Still, she'd promised her mom she wouldn't get into trouble anymore, after her less-than-perfect record at elementary school. Her mom lived very firmly by the 'turn the other cheek' motto.

Alice made it to 3B without further incident (aside from some minor shoving and pushing in the crowded hallways), and sank into her wooden desk with a small sigh. A few kids met her eyes and flashed a smile, but everyone was busy talking with their old elementary school friends or unstrapping their books and pencils.

The classroom was nothing special: a long, clean blackboard at the front behind the teacher's desk, rows of individual desks with creaky wooden chairs, and a ticking clock on the back wall. The dusty windows offered a view of the street beyond, which was near empty now that most students were inside.

Alice propped her chin on her hand and eyed her fellow classmates. They seemed a loud bunch, all packed in to one classroom, a mix of boys and girls. Alice was relieved to see that she wasn't the only one with secondhand clothes. She sat on the left side of the class near the middle, with a red-haired girl to her right and two boys in front and behind.

When the massive brass bell out the front of the school clanged, Alice's head jerked up and her eyes widened as a tall, dark haired man in a crisp charcoal grey suit and wire spectacles strode into the room. He looked young, maybe in his later twenties. He took his place at the front by the blackboard, folded his hands in front of him and looked out at the suddenly-silent class.

"Good morning, everyone," he said in a brusque voice. "Welcome to Brooklyn Junior High. I am Mr Hawthorne, I will be your homeroom teacher this semester. I also teach French, American History, and Physical Education. Now I'll take the register."

With her hands in her lap, Alice's eyebrows rose. It seemed Mr Hawthorne was going to be very different from her enthusiastic elementary school teacher. With a shrug, she settled back to sit patiently as he read through the register. A few names in, the girl to Alice's right leaned back and whispered to the boy behind her: "He must be new in the area, I've never seen him before."

The boy opened his mouth to reply, but Mr Hawthorne called: "Quiet, please!" and they both settled back into their seats.

Alice listened to each name and who answered to it, remembering faces and the way they answered. She was good with names.

"Alice Moser?"

"Present," she called, in as neutral an accent as possible. She didn't want a repeat of earlier. Mr Hawthorne looked up, noted her, and looked away again. _Phew._

Two more names passed before:

"Finnigan Neri?"

"Pre- present." Alice's attention perked at the distinctive lisp over the _s _in 'present', and looked over at the boy who'd spoken – he had dark hair and eyes, a complexion that made Alice think he might be Italian, and was larger than most of the other boys in the class. He hunched in on himself despite his size and didn't make eye contact with Mr Hawthorne. He looked like Alice felt – sticking out like a sore thumb. A few students on the other side of the classroom giggled.

Alice eyed Finnigan for a few moments, waiting for Mr Hawthorne to call the next name so she could learn it. But he didn't. After another moment she looked back to the front of the classroom.

Mr Hawthorne's dark eyes were fixed on Finnigan. He looked down at the register, then back up, and called again: "Finnigan Neri?"

Finnigan's cheeks flushed pink. "Present," he called, a little louder. Alice saw his tongue trip over the _s _this time, turning it into a _th._

More giggles.

Her head swiveled back to Mr Hawthorne, whose eyes had narrowed. Alice glanced around. _Could he not hear him?_

"Please respond to your name with a clear and understandable '_present_'," the teacher called, enunciating carefully. He pitched his voice to the whole class, but his eyes were fixed on Finnigan. Alice's stomach dropped. _Oh._ "Now: Finnigan Neri!"

Finnigan had gone red now. Alice watched him swallow carefully, take a breath, and then call: "Present!" The _th _sounded even more obvious this time, and his voice had gone up an octave. The boy behind Alice snorted.

"Again," Hawthorne said. His arms folded across his chest.

"_Present_." That time was clearer, though the lisp was still there. Alice's stomach churned and she glanced back to Hawthorne. Her face was hot, she felt almost sick.

"Speak _clearly_." Hawthorne called, growing frustrated. Students throughout the classroom were laughing now and hiding their smiles behind their hands.

Finnigan Neri's eyes gleamed. He took a breath. "Present," he lisped in a small voice.

Mr Hawthorne reached behind him and Alice's stomach dropped away when she realized he'd picked up the wooden ruler resting on the edge of the blackboard. He strode forward, a frown darkening his brow. "I can't hear you–"

Alice's fists clenched in her lap and anger scorched through her veins. When it came to herself, her mom had always told her to turn the other cheek. But when it came to other people, she always had this to say: _"Du musst dich für andere Menschen einsetzen, _Alice." [_You must stand up for other people_]. Alice chose to take that literally.

She planted her palms on her desk and began to push herself to her feet, anger sharp in her chest–

"Leave him alone!"

The whole room froze. Laughter died, and in the third row Finnigan Neri hid his face.

Halfway out of her chair, Alice blinked and looked around. She hadn't spoken, so who–? her eyes snagged on the source of the shout: a tiny blond kid in the first row who'd shot to his feet a second before she had, and now glowered at Mr Hawthorne. Alice stared at him.

Mr Hawthorne turned slowly, his expression thunderous. "I beg your pardon?"

The whole class stared at the boy. He stood with his fists clenched by his sides and his chest heaving as he stared up into their teacher's face. "I said leave him alone."

It was all Alice could do to keep her mouth closed.

"What is your name?" Hawthorne asked, in a deceptively calm voice.

The boy's jaw clenched. "Steve Rogers," he said mutinously. Staring at his angular face, Alice realized that she recognized him. She'd seen him around the neighborhood since she moved two months ago, and she was pretty sure he and his mom went to the same church as Alice and her mom. He'd never stood out to her until now, though.

"Steve Rogers," Hawthorne repeated slowly. He checked his register with a scowl. "Hold out your hand."

A low mutter went through the classroom. Steve Rogers looked right into Mr Hawthorne's eyes with defiance writ in hard lines on his face. A tense moment passed, and then he held out his small, slender-fingered hand palm up.

Before anyone had a chance to prepare, Hawthorne brought the wooden ruler down on Steve Rogers's open palm with a _crack_. A collective gasp went up, followed by a few nervous titters. Alice flinched in her seat. Steve Rogers winced but then steeled his expression. Mr. Hawthorne raised the ruler again.

Part of Alice wanted to stand as well, to say _give me the strikes too_. Her mother's voice rang in her ear: _Stay out of trouble, Alice. _But she couldn't just _sit here._ She watched Mr. Hawthorne strike Steve Rogers again, watched the him do his very best to not react, then looked back to where Finnigan Neri was doing his very best to disappear. The boy was half in tears. She looked from him and back to the pink-cheeked, clenched-jawed Steve Rogers flinching as the ruler left red marks on his palm, and an idea occurred to her.

She sat back in her seat and began to think.

They got through the rest of the register once Steve Rogers had received five strikes, and the rest of the day passed in relative peace after the tense first homeroom. Alice didn't have much time to think about Mr Hawthorne in amongst the rush of meeting new teachers and classmates and learning her new schedule, though she did have a French class with him in the afternoon. Finnigan Neri and Steve Rogers were also in the class. Steve Rogers' palm had an ugly bruise laid across it.

Hawthorne seemed irritated to learn that there was a native French speaker in the class, a girl named Edith, but besides some snide remarks cast her way there was no scene comparable to that morning.

Alice and Edith got to chatting, and by the end of class Alice was hopeful that she'd made her first new friend.

That afternoon Alice went home to the tiny apartment over her stepfather's tailor shop, where the water pipes clanged in the night and it was perpetually freezing or sweltering, and let her mother bundle her into a tight hug. Alice's mom asked about her first day of school and about her new classmates. Alice responded with a two-sentence description of every person in her homeroom class including their names, who their friends were, and what she thought of them. She didn't tell her mom about what had happened in homeroom that morning. She was still thinking.

Her mom gave her a weird look, but then kissed her on the head and told her to go play.

"Where's Matthias?" Alice asked as she headed to the door.

"He's performing at Tillie's tonight with the band, he won't be back until late." Her mom brushed her feathery blonde hair out of her eyes and smiled at Alice. "But he wants to hear about your first day tomorrow over breakfast, so keep it fresh in your mind!"

Alice had just flung open the door when a squawk from behind her stopped her in her tracks: "Alice!"

She rolled her eyes and turned around to see Tom, her little brother, waddling toward her over the creaky wooden floor clad in nothing but a cloth diaper. His face was covered in jam.

"I'm coming back," she sighed, but crouched down to kiss the top of his dark-haired head. Tom was only two, but he seemed eternally concerned about where Alice was and where she was going.

She heard a creak behind her and looked over her shoulder to see Mrs Wells, their upstairs neighbor, glancing through the open door at Alice crouched down beside her brother. The white-haired woman's mouth curved down as she looked between the siblings and she turned to walk downstairs. Tom, oblivious, tugged on the collar of Alice's uniform.

"Off you go," Alice's mom said quietly. _Turn the other cheek._

Alice kissed Tom's head again, more earnestly this time, then patted his little shoulder and darted out the door.

They'd moved in two months ago, but the neighbors still gave them sideways glances. Still, people had been doing that ever since her mom married Matthias. It wasn't even like they went out all together all that much. But when you were a white woman living with a black man, you may as well be standing on the street corner shouting your business to the world.

_Turn the other cheek, _mom always said. So Alice did. When she saw the side-eyes, or overheard the comments pitched just a tone too loud to be private, she turned away. When people stared at her playing with her darker-skinned half-brother, she pretended not to notice. Her mom and stepfather had never said it outright, but she knew that they had to go as quiet and unnoticed as possible to stay safe.

Each time she turned away and pretended not to notice, the cold, hard anger growing inside her like hoarfrost grew a little thicker.

But as everyone insisted on reminding her, she was still only twelve – too young to be worrying about things like that. And she had other things to think about. Like how Tom kept waking up two to three times a night and waking her up. It was enough to drive a girl crazy.

Sighing, Alice ran outside into the cooling afternoon air and went to go toss rocks at cans in the alley with the neighborhood kids.

* * *

Over the next few days, Alice sat through half a dozen more classes where Mr. Hawthorne found the weakest link and _struck. _In their Physical Education class he decided that the weakest link was little Steve Rogers, because he was small and wheezed when he ran. But Steve didn't cry when Hawthorne picked on him, he just balled his fists and got this stormy look on his face like David about to stand up to Goliath.

Standing in the middle of a throng of her classmates, Alice was fascinated. It reminded her of the part in an opera where the small, lonely voice suddenly swelled, expanded, until there was nothing else but that single voice in the universe.

Aside from the ever-looming threat of Hawthorne's ire, junior high was shaping up pretty well for Alice. She was getting to know her classmates, finding her feet in her classes, and since no one here knew about her stepfather and brother yet she hadn't experienced a single side-eye.

On Thursday in last period French, Hawthorne got started in on Finnigan again when he stumbled over the pronunciation of _sil-vous-plait. _It turned out the kid had a stutter on top of a lisp. Most everyone else in the class laughed behind their hands or pretended they didn't notice, but Steve Rogers stood up again and this time got sent to the principal's office with a warning that he'd be caned by the end of the week if he kept this up.

After class Alice cinched her books into their leather strap and then followed after Finnigan to check on him – Mr. Hawthorne had assigned him a tongue twister, the monster. She lost him for a minute in the thick throng of students in the hallways, but caught sight of him outside again as he walked around the side of the school building.

Alice rushed over, drawing in a breath to call his name, but once she rounded the corner of the building she stopped in her tracks.

This side of the grounds housed the teacher's parking lot, filled with a mix of cars from sleek black sedans to dinged-up lemons. Finnigan stood by the nicest car in the whole lot beside a tall mustachioed man in an expensive-looking suit.

Alice blinked. _That's the principal._

She stared from the shadow of the school building as the principal clapped Finnigan on the shoulder and ruffled his hair. Finnigan smiled up at the man despite the shadows under his eyes from his harrowing French class.

Alice's eyes widened. _Ah._

* * *

That evening Alice didn't speak much – not during family dinner, in which her mother described a business meeting she had helped translate for, or later when her stepfather turned on the radio and started dancing a giggling Tom around the tiny living room.

She sat, her chin propped on her fist, with a furrow in her brow.

_Finnigan won't say anything_, she realized. She was sure he got enough guff from the other kids for being the principal's son that he wasn't about to start being a snitch.

"Allie, what's the matter?" Alice blinked and looked up to see her stepfather peering down at her, Tom propped on his hip and his brow raised. Matthias was a tall man. His dark hair was always cropped close to his forehead and there was an ever present twinkle in his eye. He always dressed well on account of being one of the best tailors in Brooklyn, but allowed himself to relax at home – right now he wore his white undershirt tucked into his neatly-fitted tan pants, and stood on the wooden floorboards with bare feet. He cocked his head at Alice. "You look like you're trying to figure out how the universe got put together."

Alice shook her head at him. "No – not tonight, anyway."

He cracked a grin at her. "That's my girl." He sat down on the couch beside her and shifted Tom slightly. "So what's the matter? That ain't your song-writing face."

"I don't have a song-writing face."

"Sure you do. Is it boy trouble? Anyone at that new school bothering you?"

_Yes. _"No. Just thinking about some homework."

Matthias's grin softened, and she could see from the look in his eyes that he'd caught her lie. He was one of the very few who could. He tapped her foot just as her mom walked in from the kitchen. "You'll sort them out, Allie. I know you will."

"Sort who out?" Her mom questioned. "Are you in trouble, Alice?"

"_No_," Alice said, being more careful about the lie this time. Not that it was really a lie.

"She's scheming again," Matthias said with a wink at Alice.

"_Himmel, hilf uns,_" [_Heaven help us_] her mom sighed.

"Ain't nothing anyone in heaven or on earth can do when Allie gets scheming," Matthias laughed, then gently settled Tom on the couch. "Come now, you want to dance your troubles away?" He stood up lithely and held a hand out toward Alice. He started moving his shoulders in time with the jazz song on the radio – _Sing, You Sinners_. The song had been playing nonstop since it first appeared in a movie earlier in the year.

Alice smiled, but shook her head. "No thanks, I'm still thinking. About my homework."

"So I guess it's up to you and I to tear up the dancefloor, Marie!" Matthias announced as he whirled to face Alice's mom. Her mom cast him an exasperated look, but burst out laughing when he took her hand and wheeled her into a spin. She fell into step with him in time to the song, spinning and stepping across the threadbare carpet. On the couch, Tom squealed in delight.

Alice sat curled up on the couch, watching her mom and stepfather dance with a smile on her face. And as she smiled, she schemed.

* * *

The next day, Alice sneezed in homeroom.

She continued to sneeze through her next two classes, and by third period French she had developed a cough. Mr Hawthorne seemed irritated by the interruptions, but he did not turn his ire her way – his favorite weak link was there after all, struggling through the French pronunciations. Alice sniffled and coughed through the first twenty minutes of the lesson until she sensed Hawthorne's razor-sharp focus on Finnigan reach its peak.

She held up her hand.

Diverted from Finnigan's tripping tongue, Hawthorne strode up the rows of desks toward where Alice sat. The students he passed kept their heads down, all too aware of their teacher's mounting frustration.

"What is it?" Hawthorne asked curtly, his dark brows drawn together.

Alice pointed to a line on her notepad. "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't under-" she broke off in an explosive sneeze which splattered Hawthorne's trousers in moisture and brought a disgusted expression to his face.

"Eugh!" he exclaimed and stepped back. "Moser, are you ill?"

She held a finger under her nose and looked up at him with bleary eyes. "I think so, sir, I" – another sneeze – "I think it's getting worse."

"Then why are you interrupting my class? Go to the nurse."

Alice meekly stood up and made her way out of the classroom. As she left the room she noticed Hawthorne heading back toward Finnigan Neri. In the front row, Steve Rogers looked over his shoulder.

She left the door open.

Alone in the empty corridor, Alice strode briskly toward the nurse's office. She didn't have long to make this work. Her footsteps squeaked on the hallway floor and her eyes darted around. On her way past a trash can she carefully eased her handkerchief out of her skirt pocket and tipped it upside down – a cloud of fine grey pepper fell into the can. Alice scrunched up the kerchief and put it away again.

Once she reached the administration offices she knocked on the nurse's door and darted in.

The nurse, a mid-forties woman named Ms Edna, glanced up from where she'd been filling out paperwork at her desk. Her eyes seemed wide behind her glasses and her white peaked cap made her head look strange and angular. "Oh, Alice. Are you alright?"

Alice smiled. "Mr Hawthorne just gave me permission to leave his class, I wasn't feeling very well." She held up a hand at the concerned look on Ms Edna's face. "But I'm fine now, I think I just needed the fresh air."

Ms Edna sat back in her chair. "Oh. Well that makes my job easy, doesn't it? Here, have a sweet and head back to your class." The nurse turned to her jar of sweets and unscrewed the lid, and Alice smiled. Ms Edna liked her because she'd come to her office after school a couple of times last week to help clean up.

"Thank you," she said earnestly, and accepted the paper-wrapped butterscotch with slightly pepper-dusted fingers. Ms Edna didn't notice. "Bye!"

"Head straight back to class, please!"

"You got it," Alice assured her as she closed the door behind her. Alibi complete, she turned not right, toward the hallway leading to her classroom, but left. Fifteen paces brought her to a sturdy wooden door with a brass name plate on it. Alice straightened her uniform, tucked the candy into her pocket (the non-pepper one), and then knocked.

"Enter," came a man's deep voice.

Alice opened the door but didn't enter. She stood politely in the doorway and waited for the man seated at the desk inside to look up at her. She'd opened the door onto a wide office with windows looking out over the front courtyard of the school, furnished with a mahogany desk, steel filing cabinet and a brown potted plant. Paisley white curtains hung beside the windows. There was even a leather couch for visitors – Alice couldn't begin to imagine how much money that had cost.

"Excuse me, Mr Neri?" she said with a bite of nerves in her voice. The man nodded and looked over, his eyes kind over his thick mustache. "Mr Hawthorne said he needed to see you in his classroom right away…?" Her gut churned. If this went wrong…

"Oh." The principal got to his feet and straightened his tie, glancing around at his office with a frown before heading for the door. "Is that so? Is something the matter?"

"I'm not sure," Alice said. She stepped out of his way and then paced ahead to lead him. She tried to keep her face angled away from him, but not so obviously that he'd grow suspicious.

"Hm. What's your name, dear?"

Alice wiped her sweaty, peppery palm on her skirt. They were thirty seconds away from the classroom. She really didn't want her name involved in this. "You know, we've just been learning to say our names in French today, but it's difficult because there's lots of words that are hard to pronounce-" she rambled for the next twenty five seconds, two steps ahead of Mr Neri as he _ah_ed and _mmhm_ed, suitably bored by her twelve-year-old chatter.

Alice slowed as they approached the open doorway, from which the sounds of Mr Hawthorne's raised voice could be heard. Mr Neri strode past Alice with barely a glance at her and reached the doorway.

Alice crept up behind him and peered in.

Finnigan Neri stood beside his desk, bright red and holding out his shaking hand. Mr Hawthorne loomed over him with his ruler. The entire class stared.

Finnigan swallowed. "_C-comment vou-vous appelez… a-appelez-vous?_" His lisp, choked by tears, made the words nearly illegible.

"_A – a – a – appelez_?" Hawthorne mimicked, sticking his tongue between his teeth to enhance the mocking lisp. "Are you attempting to speak French or Yiddish, Neri? I can't tell. _Again._"

"_C- c – comment_-"

The ruler made a sound like a cracking whip as it came down on Finnigan's shaking hand. Finnigan yelped and a tear spilled from his eye, and at the front of the classroom Steve Rogers was already half-out of his seat again, but then Mr Neri in the doorway cleared his throat.

The room froze. Alice hid behind the open door, but not before she saw the look on Mr Hawthorne's face when he turned around to see the school principal standing in the doorway to his classroom. It made something inside her sing.

For a few moments, the entire room was silent as Mr Neri strode into the room. Then he started yelling.

Alice waited until Mr Neri was about a minute into his shouting before she slipped into the classroom. She darted up the row to her desk and dropped into her seat, sparing a glance around the classroom of students staring as the principal shouted at their pale-faced teacher. No one had noticed her – actually, that wasn't true. Little Steve Rogers had noticed her because he was sinking back into his own seat at the same time, strangely mollified.

The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds. Alice's gut churned. Would he say something?

Then Mr Neri seemed to yell himself out. "Mr. Hawthorne, you will come with me to my office." He turned to the class. "Class is dismissed. Return to your homerooms." He stormed out of the room and Mr. Hawthorne slinked at his heels with a sick look on his face.

Once the door closed behind them, the entire class shot to their feet and started gossiping amongst themselves. The room filled with a hubbub of noise and Alice let out a sigh.

After a moment to calm her beating heart, Alice got to her feet and walked a few rows over to Finnigan Neri's desk. His face was still bright red and he looked like he wanted to melt through the floor.

"Hello," Alice said.

Finnigan looked up at her with a wary look in his eyes. She pulled the wrapped butterscotch out of her pocket and held it out. Finnigan took it, frowned at it for a moment, then looked back into her face.

She smiled. "Want to come kick a ball around after class?"

* * *

Steve didn't know how, but he was _sure _that that Moser girl had arranged this.

He kept turning it over in his head for the rest of the day as the gossip spread throughout the school. He barely paid attention to his lessons and then walked home with his hands in his pockets and a frown on his brow.

He kind of knew Alice Moser – he'd seen her in church before. She moved here with her mom a few months ago, he thought. He'd recognized her in their first homeroom class, but they didn't sit near each other and Steve didn't really know how to talk to girls, so they hadn't spoken. All he knew about her was her name, and that she sounded like she was from somewhere in Europe.

On Saturday, as Steve spent the morning with his mom solving puzzles in the newspaper, he went back over his memory of that final French class. He vaguely remembered Alice Moser leaving, though he was sure most people hadn't noticed. Then one minute Hawthorne was being his usual bully self, and the next the school principal was there to shout and drag him out. And Alice Moser returned. No one else had questioned the arrival of the principal – he could have just been walking past, after all. But _Alice Moser _had been there. Steve was sure she'd had something to do with it. Yet how could she have set things up that way?

He puzzled over it in the afternoon as he sat on the apartment's fire escape and watched a group of younger kids on the street below play marbles. His mom stuck her head out and asked if he'd been feeling sick, because he'd been frowning so much, but he just shook his head. He wasn't sick. He was _confused._

* * *

The next morning, Steve went to church with his mom. Alice Moser was there. But this time, she didn't just sit beside her mom in the pew.

Near the end of the service when the choir came out, Alice slipped out from beside her mom and walked up to the front. She wore a Sunday best sky blue pinafore with a dark collar, darned at the shoulder, and well-shined shoes. Her blonde hair was neatly braided.

The dark-suited priest smiled at her and set a hand on her shoulder. "We've got something special planned today," he said to the congregation. "The young Miss Moser here has been practicing with our church choir these last few weeks, and she's going to give us a performance today. I hear it's her first performance in public, so let's be kind, everyone! I think you'll enjoy this."

The priest nodded to Alice and she went to stand by the piano. Steve watched her with a quirked brow. He couldn't think of anything worse than singing in front of a bunch of strangers, but if Alice was nervous she didn't show it. Her brow was set, her shoulders straight. She looked like she had when he spotted her sneaking back to her desk in French class.

The pianist started up at the plinky piano, introducing the opening notes of a classic choral song. Steve recognized it but couldn't remember the name. They didn't sing it often in church because the lyrics weren't in English.

The piano notes echoed across the congregation. Someone shifted in front of Steve.

Then Alice Moser opened her mouth and _sang_.

Steve's mom's hand flew to her chest. "Oh my word," she whispered.

Steve had to agree. Alice Moser singing was… he'd expected the usual nice, choral songs belted out by a thin voice, but this was… this was like the stuff they heard on the radio. He swallowed. Her voice rose, lilted, crested notes that Steve didn't know a human voice could hit so clearly. Alice's voice was high but rounded somehow, as if there were an entire universe inside her lungs just waiting to be released through her voice. She didn't sound like a kid.

The congregation sat spellbound.

Alice didn't meet anyone's eye as she sang. The song was slow, reminiscent, and Steve thought _she's only my age, how is she doing that? _He knew he sure as hell couldn't express such… such… he didn't even know what. Mrs Bodkins three rows ahead wept into her handkerchief.

Halfway through the song, the wind blowing through the open church doors must have kicked up because Alice's hair blew out of her face and the lit candles flared for a second. Alice's head jerked, eyes lifting, but she didn't stop singing and after a second of hesitation she continued on as normal.

Steve's eyes itched. He realized he hadn't blinked once.

Alice finished on a high, impossibly strong note, her mouth seeming kind of small compared to the strength and beauty of her voice. After a moment of silence the entire church burst into applause. Steve joined in.

The priest, clearly loving it, strode toward Alice and said once the applause had died down: "Our little church's choir is blessed to have you Alice, thank you so much. You've got a real gift."

Alice strode back down the aisle to her mom, and Steve saw her let out a shaky breath once she was out of the public eye.

_So she does have nerves, after all._

As if sensing his gaze, Alice glanced up and looked at him across the church hall. Steve held her eyes for a moment before he realized what he was doing and glanced away. His ears flamed red.

His mom nudged him. "That girl goes to your school, doesn't she?"

"Yeah," he said, careful not to look back in Alice's direction.

"What do you think of her?"

Steve met his mom's eyes. She seemed genuinely curious, her cheeks still flushed from listening to Alice sing.

He opened his mouth and then closed it. _What do you think about Alice Moser?_

"I don't know."

* * *

** _~ I see you ~_ **

* * *

Excerpt from: '_Controversial Figures of the Twentieth Century_' by Brian Jameson (2002), p. 72:

_There is little known about Alice Moser's early childhood. We know that she was only seven years old when she moved from Austria to New York City with her mother and father. Her father died only months later, and after working as a single parent for a year her mother Marie remarried in 1927, to an African American tailor and jazz musician, Matthias Johnson. Moser's half brother Thomas was born in 1928._

_In 1929 the Great Depression struck, and in 1930 the new family lost their house in the Bronx and moved to the apartment above Johnson's tailor shop in Brooklyn. Fragmented school records from Brooklyn show that Moser was a bright student, with an aptitude for math and languages, and newspaper clippings from the time show that even at an early age she was making her mark as a singer._

_Aside from these shreds of evidence, however, Moser's childhood is largely shrouded in mystery; partly due to the deprivations of the Great Depression which extended through her formative years and partly due to the quiet life she lived in Brooklyn. No doubt her mother and step-father, a mixed-race couple in prewar New York City, did not seek out the limelight._

_Historians are curious about Alice Moser's childhood, but that curiosity does not hold a candle to what she would become, forged in the fires of world war and devastation: The Siren._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome, lovely readers! If you're one of my Wyvern readers, hello again! I'm back! Welcome to Alice's story.  
If this is the first time you've clicked on something of mine, thanks! I hope you come back for more. I'll keep it short and sweet for now, but I'll just say that yes, things might seem a bit weird right now and we haven't had a lot of Steve yet (and no Bucky), but trust me on this – I've got a plan. Or who knows, it could just be a weird failure. Let's find out!
> 
> Part One of the Siren will have two timelines running through it:
> 
> 1\. The one you see in this chapter, which covers the first half of the 1930s in Brooklyn.  
2\. The other timeline, titled 'Letters Across the Ocean', will cover the second half of the 1930s – we'll get a glimpse of that next chapter, which will come soon and be much shorter.
> 
> In the meantime I've already got a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmyEFm4fuH4p0qf3_NdQOQAiG9x82GOVH) set up for this story because it's quite musical (see the 2nd song on the playlist for inspiration for the song Alice sings in this chapter).  
  
Thanks for reading and see you next chapter!


	2. Letters Across the Ocean (1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The letters in this chapter are dated 5/6 years after the events of last chapter.

**Emily Dickinson** ** _: A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend._ **

* * *

_February 29__th__, 1936_  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,

_I've finally managed to be able to send you a letter. I promise I haven't forgotten you, but my uncle hasn't been very supportive of me keeping up a correspondence with New York. He's a complicated man to live with – he always _says _I __can__ do something, but when it comes down to actually doing it… anyway, that's beside the point. The return address I've included is not actually where I'm currently living but is the address of a new friend of mine, Jil__í. We met at the bakery, and now I think about it she must be the only person I've met who wasn't introduced to me by my uncle. Send all your letters to this address and __Jil__í will pass them on to me._

_I'm sure you'll ask, so I'll tell you now: I'm alright. I've barely had a moment to stop and think, and I'm glad. Everything happened so suddenly. Before I knew it I was on the ship to Europe, and then my uncle was whisking me around Vienna to parties and visits. He's a very well-connected man._

_I don't want to be ungrateful to him, but every day he takes me around to some new part of the city and expects me to fall in love with it, when all I can seem to do is miss what I left behind. I miss my home and my family so much, more every day I think. I keep expecting to turn around and see them there. Will you let me know if you've seen my brother? I've managed to send a letter and I'm hoping Tom will be able to write something in reply, but it'd be nice to hear from you about him._

_And of course, I miss you and Bucky. Let me know how you're doing. I hope your mom's well._

_I want you to know, I meant what I said before I left._

_Please write soon._

_Yours,  
Alice_

_March 2__nd__, 1936_  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,

_It was a big relief to get your letter. I had been kinda worried that you might've forgotten me, and I was starting to think about how to send a letter to someone whose address I didn't know. I was considering asking that lady in Flatbush who puts those witchcraft ads in the paper._

_<strike>I </strike>Bucky and I miss you too. This place isn't the same without you. I'm sitting next to empty desks at school, there's no one slipping me notes while the teacher isn't looking, there's no music where there used to be. You must've been really noisy for me to notice the silence now. I've still got Bucky, of course, but he's treating me like I'm made of glass (even more than usual)._ _ <strike>I don’t think he really gets</strike> But enough about me, I'm fine – really._

_I have seen your brother. Bucky and I took the train out to Harlem to drop off some food our moms made, and your stepfamily was real happy to see us. Tom's doing well, though he seems confused about where you are, but he's being well looked after. Apparently there's already a letter on its way to you._

_Also, my god, I didn't know how many people you knew until every single one of them came and found _me _to ask after you. I've never had so many people talk to me in my life. I've attached some messages from the ones who wanted to write to you, hence the very fat envelope. There's a note from Bucky, too, you'll be able to tell from the horrible handwriting._

_By the way, how did you ever befriend Mrs Symanski from the post office? I'm pretty sure she only speaks Polish, and I feel like I would've noticed if you learned Polish._

_Mom's fine, she's been assigned to the TB ward so her hours have changed again. She says she hopes you're doing alright and that she misses seeing you at church._

_Sorry to hear things aren't going well with your uncle – are you okay? He's not doing anything to make you unhappy, is he? Why isn't he letting you write back to home?_

_Sorry for the interrogation. I just worry about you I guess. Not that you can't take care of yourself! But Bucky and I have always been there to back you up (or talk you out of your revenge, though I'll admit I'm not as good at that as Bucky) and I hate the idea of you fending for yourself. I'm glad you're making friends, though. Say hi to Jil_ _í for me. That's not an Austrian name, is it?_

_And what's Vienna like? Are you going to finish school now you're settled? Let me know as much as you can._

_I miss you already, Alice. We'll just have to become the best set of pen-pals that ever existed._

_I meant what I said, too._

_Yours,  
Steve_

_PS: I've included a sketch of our 8A__M math class, to make sure you don't miss us _too _much. I never understood the word 'mindnumbing' until this semester._

_March 6__th__, 1936_  
Vienna  
Dear Oh Great and Powerful Pen-Pal,

_Thank you thank you thank you! I thought I was doing alright over here, but then Jil__í brought me your letter and just the sight of your name in your handwriting made me burst into tears. But stop! I can feel you feeling bad from all the way over here – I didn't tell you that to make you feel bad, I mean that your letter reminded me of home, and it reminded me to _feel _something. And then seeing all the messages from my friends back in Brooklyn was such an amazing gift. (Side note, please punch Bucky on the arm for me). Thank you._

_(You're right about _ _Jil_ _í's name by the way – she's not Austrian originally. Her family are Romani, they settled here thirty years ago. _ _Jil_ _í's a typist, and while she doesn't share my taste in movies or books, we get along like a house on fire when it comes to music. I think you'd like her. She says what she means and she's not afraid to put up her fists)._

_Thank you also for checking up on Tom, that means more than I can say. My step-aunt did send a letter, with a few lines from Tom, and it was so good to hear from them._

_You don't need to worry about me, I promise. My uncle has been very good to me – he's set me up in his house in Vienna, and my new bedroom is three times the size of my little one above the tailor shop in Brooklyn. I have all these new clothes and books and decorations, so many I hardly know what to do with them. My uncle has plenty of friends in Vienna so we're constantly going around to parties and gallery openings and performances. Steve – I think I might be rich now. I don't know how it snuck up on me by surprise, but there we are._

_As for school, my uncle doesn't much see the point in me going back for only a few months and I agree. He's asked me to sing at nearly every party we attend, however, (you know the kind of rich-people parties where someone has to be singing or playing) and the other day when I asked about maybe going to a music school he said he liked the idea._

_My uncle's life is all centered here in Austria, so I think that's why he doesn't put much thought into my correspondence back home. Plus he has a weird hangup against using English. Sometimes I speak to myself in English in my room just to hear the language._

_It's strange using German all the time again. Reminds me of my mom, which is nice._

_You asked about Vienna. It's… different._ _Things in Austria aren't like I remember them, but it __has__ been a long time since I was last here. It feels more German than it was before, and the people are much more hard-hearted than I remember. It could have been because I didn't live in the city before, though._

_Did you know that there's members of the German Nazi Party in the government here? I thought they were only in Germany, but Jil_ _í says that even though the party is technically banned here, they still get in. We went to a function with some government types last week and some of the younger men were talking very openly about their support for that party. Seems strange to me, but I guess I haven't been paying as much attention to my country as I should have been._

_Anyway. Vienna is beautiful – it's all sweeping boulevards and grand buildings, I can hardly believe I live here. It's so _clean _as well. My favorite building so far is the Vienna State Opera – it's an impressive enough place on the outside, but the inside is the most wonderful place I've ever been; it's got grand gold frescoes and an enormous chandelier and a giant mural painted on the ceiling. I know you'll say it's typical that I love the building full of music, but when my uncle took me there to see a performance I think I might have been looking more at the room than the singers._

_It's no Empire State Building, though._

_You know, I think you must be noisier than I remember as well, Steve, because I'm constantly expecting to hear your voice only to be disappointed. Whenever I see someone being rude or mean my first thought is 'oh no, where is Steve so I can stop him trying to fight this man'._

_Don't get annoyed with me. I've pulled you away from enough fights to be justified in the thought._

_Sorry this letter's gotten so long! There's so many things I've been wanting to talk to you about. Please write soon._

_Yours,  
Alice._

* * *

Excerpt from listicle '_10 Austrians Who Changed the World', _2017:

_1\. We're going to get this one out of the way first because it's too obvious: Adolf Hitler. This may surprise some people, but Hitler was not actually of German blood. He was born in 1889 in a town in Austria-Hungary, and in 1907 went to Vienna to study fine art..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to mention that though this story will extend into the twenty first century, it won't go into the detail throughout the movies that the Wyvern did (as in it won't closely follow a certain character's path through those movies). I haven't actually written that part yet so who knows, but just wanted to let y'all know.
> 
> Would anyone be interested in seeing the moodboard I created for inspiration in writing this story?
> 
> Lastly, I always appreciate comments to let me know what you guys liked, what you're curious about, what you want more detail on. Cheers x


	3. Chapter Two

**Leonardo da Vinci: "_The siren sings so sweetly that she lulls the mariners to sleep; then she climbs upon the ships and kills the sleeping mariners_."**

* * *

Alice went back to school on Monday to find that she had a new homeroom teacher. It only took her until the next period to realize that Mr Hawthorne was no longer at the school, and it took her until lunchtime to stop feeling bad about it. It didn't seem that Steve Rogers had told anyone what he saw so she wasn't likely to get in any trouble. She initially felt some guilt over costing a man his job in the middle of a depression, but in the end it hadn't been her doing – it had been Hawthorne's own actions that cost him the job. So she shrugged it off and got to know her new homeroom teacher.

Days turned into weeks, and Alice settled into her new neighborhood and school. Her mom and stepdad still pored over their account books in the dead of night when they thought Alice and Tom were asleep, but Alice noticed that their faces were no longer heavy with concern. Customers still visited the tailor shop and Matthias's band kept getting booked. The meals they had weren't made of much beyond potatoes and soup, but they didn't fall asleep to the sounds of their stomachs growling. Alice stopped looking at the job posting board at the post office.

One of the things her stepfather liked to tell his friends was: _Allie'll see right through you. She knows how people tick. _Alice didn't know about that. She enjoyed people-watching partly out of curiosity and partly to make sure she could fit in. She liked getting to know new people and being friends with them. Most of her classmates liked her – she always had people to chat to and hang around with. She was closest with the French girl, Edith, and Finn the headmaster's kid. She invited Finn to her church's choir and it turned out that lisps didn't mean a damn thing while you were singing.

She saw Steve Rogers around but he tended to keep to himself. Alice thought it was odd how loud Rogers was willing to be when he saw something he didn't like, but how normally he was shy, quiet, preferring to stick his nose in a sketchbook or go for walks around the schoolyard. He often came to school with skinned knees or knuckles, and sometimes he didn't come to school at all.

In the classes they shared she realized that he was actually very smart. They ended up silently competing against one another to get better grades, though Alice wasn't sure if it was all in her head. Of course she always beat him in physical education. But when Danny Hammond went around tripping up the girls in the gravel courtyard during class and Steve stood up to him (getting knocked twice as hard into the gravel for his trouble), Alice thought Steve might be the top of that class as well.

Later that month, Alice looked up at lunchtime and saw that little Steve Rogers had a nasty black eye and a new friend. He was taller, with dark hair and better clothes, and the way he hovered over Steve's shoulder made her think of the one time she saw the Pope in Vienna, surrounded by bodyguards. Steve did the hovering right back (though he didn't look quite as intimidating as the taller boy), and Alice realized that they were friends.

After some cautious snooping she found out that the taller boy's name was Bucky. After some more snooping, she found out that his _real _name was James Barnes. He was in the year above Steve and Alice, and once he and Steve started eating lunch together Steve came to school with less bruises.

A few months later, when carols clogged the radio waves and frost bit at the air, school closed for the Christmas holiday. Alice curled up in the apartment above the tailor shop with her little brother, listened to radio soaps with her mom, and sang along to the new jazz singles with Matthias. Matthias taught her how to sew warmer lining into clothes for the winter.

On Christmas Day Alice sang at church as a howling storm raged outside.

They returned home to find a fresh dump of snow piling the pavement and lumped on top of the sign for the tailor shop, and bustled inside to open presents. Alice got the latest _Buck Rogers_ comic and the _American Boy's Handy Book, _because Matthias had seen her staring adoringly at it in a shop window a week earlier.

1931

Alice devoured the book in five days. The book contained useful advice on all sorts of things from how to make kites, to outdoor camping, making various kinds of rudimentary weapons, and knots. She started tying knots in Matthias's tailoring twine until he asked her to give it a rest, and began collecting useful tools: matches, string, a pocket knife Matthias had in the back of the shop, fishing line, elastic bands, and a bit of thin rope she'd found beside the dumpster in the alley.

Two days before school went back Alice's mom took her and Tom to the Brooklyn Public Library and Alice borrowed a book that had come out earlier in the year: _The Secret of the Old Clock, _the first of a new series called 'Nancy Drew Mystery Stories'.

"Mom," Alice breathed on the way home as she ignored her mom's pleas for her to stop reading while she walked. "_Mama_, I'm going to be a detective." Nancy was sneaking around a house, avoiding robbers while she searched for a stolen clock.

"That's wonderful, Alice," her mother huffed. She shifted Tom higher up on her hip and the two-year-old giggled. "Look out for the light post!"

Alice ran back to the library in a break between snowfalls that afternoon to borrow the other three books.

The day before school went back, Alice realized that she had no way to bring her newly collected useful tools around with her – decidedly a problem if the need for a tool ever arose. She decided to put some thought into it.

The next day school started up again and yawning students trudged through the brown slushy snow back to Brooklyn Junior High. Alice struggled under the weight of her book strap, which now contained not only her textbooks but the _American Boy's Handy Book _and the third Nancy Drew novel. Their new homeroom teacher, Mrs Bartlow, didn't mind them bringing in outside books as long as they were 'educational'.

Steve Rogers was back at school after an absence for illness before the Christmas holiday. Alice nodded at him on her way into homeroom and he nodded back, wide-eyed and pink-eared. When Mrs Bartlow asked them all what they did for the holiday, Steve said quietly that he spent it with his mom. Alice recalled hearing somewhere that his father had died in the war.

Alice dozed off in the warm classrooms throughout her lessons and showed Edith her new book at lunch. Life was back to normal.

* * *

Excerpt from_: 'Nancy Drew: The Beginnings of a Legend' _by Kathy Llewyn (2010), p. 3:

_Dreamed up in 1930, the publishing company that produced the first Nancy Drew book could have no idea of the vast popularity the ensuing series would receive, despite their fervent hopes for reaching the female market. The original Nancy is independent, courageous, and bold, though she became more watered down later in the 1950s and 60s._

_Nancy became a cultural icon who has inspired the likes of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and many women who have become involved in the world of crime fighting and justice._

* * *

A few days after the Christmas break Alice sat on a stoop a few blocks away from school with the _Handy Book _splayed open on her knees. Her elbows balanced on the bottom of the book and her chin rested on her fists as she re-read the section about manufacturing hunting traps.

It was a frostbitten day. Ice crystals gathered in the gutters and cutting winds howled down the street. Alice wore her thick winter overcoat, a woolen hat, and gloves, but her legs were getting cold through her stockings. She didn't feel like going home just yet though.

Matthias's family from Harlem were visiting. Alice loved them, really. They'd been hesitant when Matthias told them he was going to marry a white lady and become a stepfather to her daughter, but they'd warmed up to Alice and her mom since and never failed to shower them with affection. It was nice, especially since Alice's mom's family in Austria had basically disowned her after the marriage (Alice barely remembered them so she didn't mind). When they lived in the Bronx they'd been closer to Tom's family, and Alice had always enjoyed seeing the warm, loud way they all interacted with each other, hearing the music that pulsed with life, and the way they always had a little extra to spare no matter how dire things got.

It just got a little too much with a dozen people in a tiny apartment. So she was going to finish her chapter out here on the stoop as the cold wind howled.

A few moments later a new sound rose over the gusting wind. "What're you reading, Moser?"

Alice's head jerked up and she frowned. She knew that voice: Billy Russel. He was in senior year, and even if she didn't have a such a good memory for names Alice would know him on sight – he and his friends ruled the school cafeteria at lunchtime, raucous at their table and sticking out their feet to trip up anyone who had the misfortune to walk past them. Alice luckily didn't have classes with them but a boy from her homeroom, Danny Hammond, was shaping up to be just like them.

Billy had shouted to her from across the street. He was with four of his loud-mouthed friends, each of them rugged up warm in winter jackets and scarves which they pulled down from their faces to stare across at her. Alice contemplated fleeing. But in the next moment they dashed across the slush-filled street and encircled her stoop. Their eyes flicked from her open book to her pink-cheeked face, glinting.

"Billy," Alice said cautiously. She hunched over her book.

"I said, what're you reading? That's a real big book for such a small girl." Billy slid his hand up the side of his jaw and through his hair like he thought he was Douglas Fairbanks. He was fifteen and had hit his growth spurt early; he towered over her, dark haired and blue-eyed. Alice's friend Edith had called him handsome.

"I'm just reading a little before I head home," she replied. The other boys were scuffing their feet in the light snow and knocking each other off balance with their shoulders.

"What is it, a secret?" asked one of the boys. He was almost as tall as Billy, and though they'd never been introduced Alice knew his name was Jacob Marlow. He threw an arm over another boy's shoulder and let out a laugh that made Alice's hackles rise. 'Come on, what're you reading?"

"It's-" but the boys had apparently lost patience, because the third one darted forward and snagged the _Handy Guide _out from under her hands. "Hey!" Alice shot to her feet but she was a full head shorter than the shortest boy, and the one with the book had sidestepped away. She stopped short and pressed her lips together.

"The '_American Boy's Handy Book'_," the brown-haired boy who'd snatched the book said in an incredulous voice. The others burst out laughing, throwing their heads back and smacking each other in the chest. Alice's cheeks burned. She looked up and down the road, but it was an offshoot of the main street and no one was outside in this weather.

Billy Russel took the book from the first boy and weighed it in his hands as he chortled. "What're you doing with a boy's book, Moser?" Alice reached out to take it from him but he spun away. He flipped the book open and rifled through a few pages until he landed on the section about sailboat rigging, and burst out laughing again.

"I'm reading it," Alice said, trying to keep her voice calm so they wouldn't hear her rising anger.

Billy ran a hand over his mouth and then smoothed down his hair again. He flipped more pages. "You spend a lot of time going camping in New York, Moser? Camping out in Hooverville with all the bums?" The boys burst out laughing again and Alice realized they'd formed a circle around her while she edged after Billy.

"Please just give it back," she said softly. Her eyes burned and her face was bright red, but she had control over her voice. She'd even softened her accent so they couldn't make fun of that as well.

"You don't need to mess around with all this," Billy assured her as he waved the book in his hand. "Surely they gotta make one for girls – sewing, and cooking, and… and-"

"Embroidery," suggested a boy beside Billy. Billy laughed and tossed the book to him. Alice flung her arm out to grab it but the boy dodged and lobbed it over her head. The _Handy Book _made a fluttering noise as it soared through the frozen air. Alice whirled around and gasped when she saw Jacob Marlow dangling the book by its cover.

"What, Moser, the boys' book didn't teach you how to catch?" he taunted her. His eyes glinted.

Alice's breath blew through her nose in a puff of vapor. "Give it back!"

"Oh, she's mad now," said a boy behind her. She looked over her shoulder but there were three of them there, laughing louder than the sound of her own sharp breaths and the heartbeat pounding in her ears, and her vision swam as she looked at them.

"You don't want it anymore?" came Billy's voice. Alice whirled again to face him and saw he had the book again, his fingers gripping the spine as he held it over his head. He smiled at her and again reached up to his face with his free hand, smoothing his eyebrow with his thumb. The action was so disarming that Alice let out a breath and held out her hand.

"Please."

His lips curled. "Right away, ma'am!" But instead of lowering the book into her open palm Billy flicked his wrist and the _Handy Book _flipped backwards, tumbling through the air with a rush of flapping pages until it came down with a dirty brown _splash _in the slush-filled street gutter.

"No!" Alice's voice broke and she dashed forward only for her foot to catch on something beneath her and send her tumbling to the damp ground. She landed hard on the heels of her palms and her chin banged into the pavement, ringing her head like a bell. Blinking, gasping at the sudden impact and the shock of cold water across her front, Alice rolled over to see the group of boys laughing again. Billy Russel winked down at her, then turned to throw his arm around Jacob Marlow.

_He tripped me._

"Bye, Moser!"

Alice stared at the boys with frost and tears in her eyelashes as they turned and strode down the street. They barged into one another and threw elbows into each other's sides, making high-pitched impressions of Alice's accent as they left.

Eventually their words faded into distant sound and the warmth in her hands turned into a biting ache. Alice sucked in a shuddering breath and pushed herself to her feet. Her pulse still roared in her ears. Her hands were shaking.

She looked down at herself. The entire front of her coat, skirt and stockings was soaked in muddy, icy water. The right knee of her stockings had torn. She looked down at her shaking hands and saw that the concrete had torn through her gloves and left stinging red scrapes across both palms. The cuts blurred, and she blinked away angry tears. Her chin ached from its impact with the pavement.

A gust of freezing wind howled down the street and cut through Alice's clothes, making her shiver.

Shaking, angry tears streaking down her face, Alice turned to see her _American Boy's Handy Book _slumped in a brown puddle in the gutter, the pages crumpled up and bleeding ink into the water. Alice swiped away her tears, realized too late that she'd just smeared blood onto her face, and then stepped into the gutter to fish her ruined book out of the puddle.

She'd just picked it up by its soaking cover when she heard hurried footsteps behind her.

Panic zinged down her spine. Alice skittered further onto the street and spun around, holding the drenched book up as a kind of shield as her breath rasped in her throat.

But it wasn't Billy and his friends back to torment her. She peered over the top of the dripping _Handy Book _to see two boys standing on the pavement across from her: one taller and dark-haired, and the other blonde and tiny. They wore identical looks of concern as they stared at the miserable figure she cut, dripping wet and disheveled in the middle of the street.

"Hey there," said the taller boy. _Bucky Barnes. _Alice's fingers clenched on the book. "What're you doing out here soaking wet?" he looked alarmed, like boys always did when girls cried in front of them. "What happened?"

To Bucky's left, Steve Rogers looked from the warped book to Alice's face and asked: "Someone did that to your book?"

A car engine rumbled at the end of the street and Alice hesitantly stepped back toward the pavement. Her jaw worked furiously. "Yes."

"Who was it?" Bucky looked around as if he might have missed someone else on the deserted road. He stepped forward to hover a hand in Alice's general area as she stepped up onto the pavement, and then gently took the soaking book from her. After a second of hesitation she released it.

Alice wiped her eyes. "It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does," Steve urged. "People can't go around destroying things, it ain't right!"

"I know it's not," she breathed. She wiped her palms on her ruined stockings and pushed her bedraggled hair out of her face, trying to control her shaky breathing. _You're okay_, she told herself. _Be okay. _After a moment to put herself to rights, she took a deep breath and then looked up.

And she finally saw Steve properly. He was all righteous, fiery indignation, like she'd seen so often at school before: chin lifted, shoulders straight, determination sparking in his eyes. She'd never seen it on _her _behalf though. Despite the indignation, his brows were still furrowed together in a look of earnest concern. She knew that he'd been knocked down a fair few times, probably by Billy Russel and his friends as well.

Alice managed a weak smile at Bucky, who was fussing over her book trying to dry it out. Then she turned back to Steve. "Thank you for caring," she said.

She'd meant to say that so many times before, because her mom always said to thank people when they did something right, and Steve did something right _all the time._

Steve blinked, and all of a sudden the indignation faded. "Of – of course." He glanced at Bucky, then back to Alice. "It ain't right," he repeated.

"It ain't," Bucky agreed. He held up the book. "I dunno if we can save this, sorry-"

"It's fine." Alice took it from him and tucked it under her arm, letting the dirty water seep into her jacket. "Thanks. I'm going to…" she wiped her nose. "I'm going to go." She spun on her heel.

"Wait," Steve called. "Let us – let us walk you home."

Alice paused and glanced back to see him looking at her with a conflicted expression on his face, his mouth turned down. Bucky glanced between Steve and Alice, a furrow on his brow.

"Thank you, but no," she said. "I only live a few blocks away."

"You gotta be freezing cold–" Bucky started, but Alice shook her head.

"It's really fine." She turned again and began striding away, her footsteps quick on the wet ground and her shaken pride causing tears to burn in her eyes again.

Steve's voice called down the street again: "Alice–"

"I said I'm fine, Steve!"

As she rushed off down the street with her destroyed book under her arm she heard Bucky say in a surprised tone to Steve: "I thought you said you weren't friends with any of the girls in your homeroom."

She just caught Steve's soft reply: "I'm not."

* * *

The next day Steve's head jumped up as soon as Alice walked into the classroom, but she avoided his gaze. He didn't know what he'd expected, but she looked as unruffled as he'd ever seen her; her clothes had been cleaned, she wore unbroken stockings, and the ribbon around her feathery blonde hair was as neat as usual. The only hint of the state he'd seen her in yesterday was a red scrape on the tip of her chin.

As she walked past, he heard her friend Edith exclaim over the cuts on her hands when she took off her gloves.

"It's nothing," Alice replied in her soft, low accent. Steve frowned in his seat.

He turned it over in his mind the rest of the day, trying to figure out who could have done that to Alice and her book. Unfortunately he knew of a few too many people capable of pushing short blonde kids into puddles. He also understood why she wouldn't tell anyone – talking only led to more puddle-pushing in his experience, and he didn't blame her for not telling him and Bucky. They were hardly knights in shining armor.

After school he and Bucky wandered the alleys around Brooklyn Junior High, talking and kicking their toes through snowdrifts. Steve's mom was at work and Bucky's parents had their hands full with his three younger sisters, so it suited them both just fine to wander through the streets. As long as Steve stayed warm. Bucky had caught on fast to how easily Steve got sick.

It was another wet, snowy day that left murky puddles in the gutters, and before long a howling wind picked up. The cold air burned down Steve's throat.

"Want to head back to mine?" Bucky suggested. "If the girls are quiet for long enough, we might be able to play cards."

"That's a pretty big if," Steve said wryly. He'd met Bucky's sisters. All of them were in elementary school and all of them talked twice as much as Bucky, which was already a lot. Still, he shrugged. "Sure, why not."

They headed in the direction of Bucky's family's tenement building, retracing a familiar route as they had most other afternoons. They turned right onto a narrower street, the same one they'd found Alice at yesterday, and Steve felt Bucky tense up beside him. He looked up. Steve's eyes weren't so good but he could clearly see what was happening a couple hundred yards away.

Alice Moser sat on the exact same stoop they'd found her near yesterday, her gloved hands resting on the cover of a thick book on her lap. Her cheeks were pink under her pale hair. Standing in a half-circle in front of her were five taller boys, and the sound of their laughter echoed up the street to Steve and Bucky. Alice glared up at them and her hands curled into fists where they rested on her book. Standing directly over her was Billy Russel, who chuckled as he ran a hand through his hair.

"Should've known it was Billy Russel," Bucky muttered. Then: "Oh, hell."

Because Steve had taken off down the street, his fists clenched and his expression thunderous. Bucky broke into a jog after him. In the same moment, Billy snatched Alice's book away from her and laughed when she leapt off the stoop and jumped up to try to take it back. He lobbed it to one of his friends and they tossed it around in a circle as Alice darted after it, grasping at thin air.

Yards away now, Steve saw Alice fall still in the middle of the circle of taller boys and a tear track down her face. His blood boiled.

"Hey!"

All five boys and Alice looked over at Steve's shout, and their eyebrows went up.

"The hell are you doing here, small fry?" Billy said with a laugh in his voice. Steve closed the distance between them and then launched toward the book in Billy's hand.

"No!" Alice cried.

Steve's fingers stretched for the book, only for Billy to yank it upwards over his head.

"Give it back to her, Russel!" Bucky shouted as he ran up.

"What, you two sweet on her or something?"

Steve jumped for the book, heart hammering in his chest, but he wasn't tall enough. Russel laughed in his face.

"Russel–" Billy's pals rushed to block Bucky from getting closer, getting in his face and laughing. Alice, Steve distantly realized, was calling _his _name. But Billy was distracted. So Steve bent his knees and then leaped upwards, fingers outstretched.

The next thing Steve knew, a firm hand planted itself in his chest and he went flying backward. He felt the brief, sickening swoop of weightlessness before he crashed into the disgusting brown puddle in the gutter. Water sprayed up into his eyes and nose.

"Steve!" Bucky and Alice cried in unison. He barely heard them over the explosive laughter of Billy and his friends.

Steve rolled out of the water, spluttering, just as Billy tossed Alice's book into the puddle after him (_Encyclopedia Britannica_, Steve read) and ground his foot into it, smushing the pages into the concrete below and getting it well and truly soaked.

Steve's fingers curled into fists. He looked from the _second _ruined book and up into Billy's laughing face, and charged. But he only got two steps before a hand curled into the back of his shirt and yanked him backwards.

"_Steve, _stop!"

He glanced over his shoulder, jaw clenched, but hesitated when he saw not one of Billy's friends but Alice, her eyes wide. She shook her head at him. "Stop."

He stopped pulling against her grip.

Then a fleshy _crack _resounded and Steve and Alice both looked over to see Bucky reel back from Jacob Marlow, his hand covering his nose and his eyes screwed up in pain. Alice cried out.

"Keep your nose out of it, Barnes!" Marlow jeered. Steve's hands fisted again and Alice let go of his shirt.

But before Steve could launch forward again, Billy turned away from them and clapped Jacob Marlow on the shoulder. "Alright fellas," he laughed. And like that was an off switch, the whole lot of them pulled away from the doubled-over Bucky and wandered back the way they came.

"Hey!" Steve shouted. He stormed back onto the pavement and started pacing after them. "You think you can go around just–"

"Leave it, Steve," Bucky said thickly. He straightened to reveal the blood flowing from his nose and over his chin, and held out an arm to block his friend. "They're leavin', let 'em go."

The sound of Billy and his friends' laughter faded. Steve's pounding heartbeat settled some, and he registered the cold slicing his lungs and the sound of himself dripping all over the pavement. He glanced at Bucky, who had his hand over his bloody nose.

Both of them turned to Alice.

She stared at them both in horror. "You shouldn't have done that," she said, stricken. Her eyes flicked from the blood on Bucky's face to Steve's bedraggled figure. She looked _guilty._

"We had to do _something_," Steve said, dripping wet and starting to shiver. He imagined he looked a lot like an angry cat. "They can't go around just grabbing people's things and _wrecking _them."

Alice let out a sigh. Steve opened his mouth, needing to do _something _about the anger and indignation coursing through him, but then Bucky bent over to pick the book out of the puddle and Alice flung out her hand and shouted: "Don't touch it!"

Bucky yanked his hand back and Steve shut his mouth with a _clack. _Steve had heard Alice sing with all the volume of a full-blown choir, but he'd never heard her _shout _like that, urgent and loud. He and Bucky both stared at her.

Alice's hand was still stretched toward Bucky and the book as if throwing up an invisible barrier. Her eyes were wide. Slowly, she drew her hand back and licked her lips. She looked from the book, to Bucky, to Steve. Steve could see some kind of calculation happening in her eyes.

Finally she shrugged and gestured at the book in the puddle. "It's an old phone book. I wasn't reading it."

Steve and Bucky's heads swung back to look at the book, and they could see it now – the book lay sprawled open in the puddle, but it certainly wasn't an encyclopedia. Finely-printed names and numbers slowly bled off the pages. The _Encyclopedia Britannica _dust jacket was slipping off.

Steve and Bucky were still staring at the phone book when Alice fetched a stick from beside the porch she'd been sitting on and used it to fish the book out of the puddle. Steve's brows drew closer and closer together as he watched her knock the sopping mess of pages into a pile of trash that would be collected the next day.

He shook his head. "What the…" he didn't know how to finish that sentence.

Silently, Alice peeled off her gloves and dropped them on the trashpile too. Then she reached into her pocket, drew out a white handkerchief and offered it to Bucky.

"Thanks," he said, slurring over the blood in the back of his throat. He took the handkerchief and stuffed it up his nose.

_Right. Bucky. _"You okay, Buck?" Steve asked as he turned to his friend.

"M' fine," Bucky said nasally, waving Steve off. Another cold wind tore down the street and sliced into Steve's dripping shirt and trousers, making him shudder. "Steve, you'll catch your death–"

Steve was about to argue when a warm weight dropped around his shoulders and abruptly interrupted the biting wind. He whirled around to see that Alice had shrugged off her warm winter coat and slung it around his shoulders, leaving her in just her school uniform and a cardigan.

At his dumbfounded expression, Alice merely shrugged. "You got pushed into a puddle because of me. You looked cold."

"I wasn't," he said, stupidly. Alice's eyebrow rose.

For a few moments the three of them just stood on the pavement, looking at each other. Alice's cheeks were pink from the cold wind and her pale hair drifted about her face. She looked back at him with that blank guileless look, the one she'd given him when he caught her sneaking back into the classroom as Mr Hawthorne got fired, the look that said _I have done nothing wrong, ever, and there is no need to question me._

Steve's eyes narrowed. "I don't… why did you put a dust jacket on a phone book?"

For a few moments the look didn't shift, and Steve reflected that he'd never met anyone who confused him as much as Alice Moser did. He was confused by most girls, but she brought a new meaning to the word.

Then, slowly, a smile crept across her face and her green eyes sparked. She cleared her throat. "Have you ever noticed that Billy Russel always runs his hand across his face and through his hair like he thinks he's a movie star?"

Steve and Bucky stared blankly for another moment.

"The hell is she talking about, Steve?" Bucky muttered.

Alice kept smiling. "Follow me."

She didn't give them a moment to question her further, just spun on her heel and started speed-walking down the street. Bucky and Steve glanced at each other, and then took off after her. She ducked down a side street and checked back to make sure the boys were following her before turning down an even smaller alley.

Alice's footsteps echoed off the empty pavements and her school skirt snapped in the blowing wind. Bucky and Steve rushed after her, one trying to watch where he was going at the same time as trying to mop up the blood running from his busted nose, and the other trying to keep up while shrugging his arms into Alice's coat.

She led them through a warren of streets, and when her pace started to slow and her footsteps grew more cautious Steve looked around with a sinking feeling. He knew this area – they were approaching an alley near the bridge where he _knew _Billy Russel and his friends liked to hang out, kicking cans and trash and sometimes cats, if they could find them. Steve glanced at Bucky, and from the wary look on his friend's face knew that Bucky had figured out their destination as well.

"Alice…" Steve called.

"Shh!" she called back right before she squeezed into a gap between two tall tenements, so narrow that it looked like she'd been swallowed up into the side of the building. Bucky and Steve shared one more wary glance before following her in.

The alley (though it barely deserved such a title) was narrow, damp, and smelled very strongly of rotting trash. Steve scraped his knee against the brick wall trying to dodge past a wooden crate someone had left there, then glanced up to see Alice crouched at the end of alley and peering between two large metal trash cans.

Behind Steve, Bucky cursed under his breath. "Goddamn crate – Moser, what the hell–"

"_Shh_," she whispered, turning away from the trash cans with her finger pressed to her lips. Bucky fell silent.

Alice's face split open in a grin and she jerked her head at the gap between the trash cans. "Come see."

Steve sighed – _why not, you followed her this far _– and then crouched down so he could squeeze in beside her. Still blinking puddle water out of his eyes, he ducked his head and peered through the narrow gap between the trash cans.

Sure enough Alice had brought them to Billy Russel's favorite hangout. The tall senior and his four friends stood in the alley beyond, being as loud as usual. But instead of kicking things and making terrible jokes, they were… rubbing their faces? Steve frowned and then looked closer.

Billy Russel stood closest to the tiny alley. He was itching madly at his face and scalp as if he were covered in invisible ants. He made wordless noises of frustration, scratching and rubbing and jiggling his legs as if incapable of standing still. He turned, growling, and Steve noticed that his lips had swollen up like two fat sausages.

"Make it _stop_!" Billy ordered one of his friends, who was scratching his neck but not nearly as desperately as Billy.

Steve watched with wide eyes as Billy let out a wordless roar, dropped to his knees, shoved his hands into the nearest pile of gritty, muddy slush and then dumped two handfuls of the stuff right on top of his head.

Steve slowly pulled away and turned to look back at Bucky. "_Look_," he mouthed.

Bucky impatiently moved in, his shoulders digging into Alice and Steve as he got a good look at what was happening in the street.

When Bucky pulled back his eyes were wide. "_How_?" he breathed. He turned to Alice, who wore her guileless look for an instant more before her lips twitched. Bucky sat back on his heels. "You a witch?"

Steve found himself laughing under his breath, covered in dirty puddle water as Alice's jacket kept him warm in the tiny, disgusting alley. Alice met his eyes. "Itching powder?" he guessed.

Alice Moser's green eyes glittered as she smirked.

* * *

After that strange afternoon in the wintry alleyways of Brooklyn, Steve started to pay more attention to Alice.

He still vividly remembered what she'd done that first week of school; somehow manipulating a bunch of adults to get Mr Hawthorne kicked out of their class. He was pretty sure he knew why she'd done it, too, and if he knew how in the hell she'd been able to do it he couldn't say he wouldn't have done the same. And now Billy and his friends, too – whether they knew their hours of uncontrollable itching were because of her or not, they left Alice Moser alone after that.

But Alice was quiet. Not in the same way he was, not socially; she got on well with everyone, but she didn't draw a lot of attention to herself. Except on Sundays when she stood up in front of the entire church congregation and brought the house down. After about the third time, Steve was able to get over his shock at her voice well enough to actually enjoy her singing.

He'd always thought she was _interesting_, but he'd never really sought her out before because… well, he was terminally shy. That wasn't it, though; he'd also sensed that there was something _more _to her. Alice Moser hid parts of herself and that made him cautious. She wasn't a bully, but he wasn't certain she wasn't a liar.

Bucky, for his part, was a big fan of what she'd pulled off with Billy but speculated that Alice was, in his words, a 'troublemaker'. He didn't have any classes with her or Steve since he was a year older, but he started nodding to her whenever he saw her around school. She always nodded back.

Now that Steve was looking he realized that while Alice didn't speak up much, she sure noticed a _lot. _He'd always known she was quick in class since they'd been competing for the best grades practically since the first day, but he found a new appreciation for how quickly she always answered the teacher's questions, and her wire-trap memory.

When Steve got into arguments and fights at school, he turned around and more often than not would see Alice's green eyes on him. She didn't look like she was laughing at him or embarrassed by him like everyone else, though. She didn't look like Bucky's mix of exasperated and yet supportive either. He couldn't quite decide what she looked like.

When he glanced over his shoulder in homeroom or spotted Alice at lunchtime she always had that guileless expression on her face. But as if a switch had been flipped, Steve could see her thinking now; could see her noticing things and figuring things out all around her. She noticed people, and seemed to understand what was happening beneath the surface. Bizarrely, it reminded Steve of the time he saw an owl on his apartment's fire escape one night a few years ago: those intelligent, wide eyes, sizing him up with a cocked head.

And Alice knew so many people. Her best friend was Edith, but she was _friends _with just about everyone. Her route to school in the morning brought her past Steve's tenement building, and he realized that his own downstairs neighbor said hi to her every time she walked past. The baker down the street gave her leftover pastries. Alice took the pastries with a smile and shared them with the newsies at the end of the block. Steve walked past them once, trying not to stare as Alice talked and laughed with the paper boys as if they'd known each other since they were infants. They talked about the town like they owned it, like they were the ones who really ran it. Maybe they did.

Steve wasn't following her (his mom raised him far better than that), but now that he'd noticed Alice once it was as if he couldn't stop noticing her. She was _everywhere._

* * *

_Captain America's Brooklyn_ by Kathleen Williams (1999):

_"In the early twentieth century the surrounds of New York City exploded with population and urbanization. Brooklyn in particular was a hub for the Great Migration of the 1920s, attracting African Americans from the south and thousands of migrants from South America and Europe. The Depression brought down that explosion of growth, leaving Brooklyn struggling with unemployment, homelessness, and starvation. One in three New Yorkers was unemployed. Salvation Army food stations and shanty towns became a familiar sight."_

* * *

One afternoon a week or so after the Billy Russel incident Steve found himself waiting out the front of the school building, his fingers tucked under his armpits for warmth and his breath coming in bursts of vapor. Dozens of other students filled the noisy courtyard outside Brooklyn Junior High, chatting or kicking balls around.

Steve would much rather be sitting somewhere warm (not that he'd ever admit that), but Bucky had been given detention and had to stay for half an hour after school. It wasn't his fault. He'd been standing up for Steve after Steve told a kid in Bucky's class to quit stealing other kids' lunches, but when the teachers showed up it was only Bucky who got the detention time. Steve intended to wait as long as it took for Bucky to get out.

In the meantime he leaned back against the side of the stone steps leading up into the school and cast his eyes around the courtyard. He'd picked up the habit of people watching from Alice, who always seemed to be aware of everything happening around her.

Steve almost sighed when his eyes landed on the girl herself. Alice was _everywhere. _She sat on a bench on the far side of the courtyard by herself, with one leg crossed over the other and a thick book propped up on her lap. She was mostly obscured by the book, save for the top of her head.

Steve watched her for a few moments, careful not to stare like some kind of creep. As he did he realized he'd seen her reading that book before. A _lot. _It had a navy blue cover with dark grey lettering and a cracked spine.

He leaned against the steps for a few more minutes, regularly glancing over at Alice as she sat with the book. The more he looked, the more the furrow in his brow deepened. His foot began to tap against the ground.

Finally he walked over.

When she heard footsteps, Alice closed her book and looked up with a faintly curious look on her face. Her expression cleared when she saw who it was.

"Steve," she acknowledged in her soft accent. The sounds of other kids laughing and chatting were quieter here.

"Hey, Alice." He nodded at the book with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. "What're you reading?"

She tilted the cover to show him. A history textbook.

"But you're not reading it," Steve said.

Alice looked up at him. "What? Obviously I'm reading it." Her voice brooked no disagreement – she made it sound as if what she said was so obviously the truth, that contradicting her would be tantamount to insanity.

Steve shrugged. "You ain't turning the pages."

For a few long, silent moments, Steve and Alice just looked at each other. Her eyes hadn't widened or shown a flicker of surprise but Steve knew he'd startled her. He let her squint at him, calculations no doubt churning away in the depths of her mind.

Finally she let out a breath. "Nobody else noticed," she muttered.

Steve shrugged again.

Alice stared at him a second longer then smiled wryly and flipped her book open. "Here."

Steve… didn't know what he'd been expecting, but he certainly _hadn't _expected to see a giant hole cut out of the middle of the textbook. Alice had glued the pages somehow, turning the book into a kind of box with the front cover as the lid. Inside the book/box, she'd stored all kinds of things: a small, rusty pocket knife, loops of rope, string and fishing line, a large piece of glass that looked like it once belonged in a magnifying glass, matches, a square of gauze, wire, and, for some reason, a snickers bar. These were all neatly arranged on top of a small stack of notepaper. It all looked old and mismatched, but she'd clearly taken care to collect these things.

Steve looked up from the hollowed out textbook and into Alice's calm, guileless face. "Why?"

She shrugged. "These things might come in handy sometime, and keeping them in a book means I can bring them around anywhere, even class. No one ever notices – well." She squinted up at him again. "You're a lot smarter than you look, Steve Rogers."

"Not as smart as you," he said non-self-consciously.

Alice's lips curved up. She patted the seat next to her. "You're waiting for Barnes to get out of detention, right? You want to sit with me?"

Steve shifted his feet.

Alice swallowed and her eyes darted away for a moment. Steve realized she was nervous. His eyes widened, and before he knew what he was doing he found himself sitting on the bench beside her.

He nodded at her book again. "So why were you just staring at your box of stuff?"

She pulled out the loop of thin rope. "I've been practicing tying knots. Want to try?"

Steve found himself smiling – at the shock of the strange book or at the idea of practicing knot tying in the middle of New York City, he wasn't sure. Either way, the smile made him realize that this was a hundred times better than sneaking glances back at Alice in homeroom without talking to her.

He took the loop of rope. "Sure."

When she looked back years later, alone and lonely, Alice always pinpointed that wintry afternoon as the day she and Steve became friends.

* * *

**~ _Joy is fleeting.  
Song is immortal. ~_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes:
> 
> The "book" about Nancy Drew I quote from is not real, and obviously neither is the one about Captain America. The facts are real, largely sourced from Wikipedia. I'll be doing this 'snippets of history' thing throughout. I'll acknowledge my real-fact sources.
> 
> Also, church is a big part of Alice and Steve's lives because that's a fact of life in the '30s. I myself am not religious and I don't think Steve's character is particularly in the later movies – if you're religious of course this is no comment on you or your religion, I just wanted to explain that religion is not going to be a big part of this story.
> 
> I realize I've been very remiss, and that I need to thank thenumbertwentyseven for very kindly reading the first chapter of this story and giving me the confidence to finally post it. I should have thanked you much earlier!
> 
> Finally, go check out the Siren's [moodboard](pinterest.com.au/ehollis0871/the-siren/).
> 
> Until next time. Don't forget to comment!


	4. Letters Across the Ocean (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep an eye on the dates. Not all the letters are in direct reply to each other.

**Letters Across the Ocean (2)**

**Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: ** ** _Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them._ **

* * *

_March 17__th__, 1936_  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,

_Thanks for the birthday wishes! Being nineteen feels no different to being eighteen, as you'll surely find out next year. My sisters are fine, thanks for asking._

_Well, you were right. Steve is moping. I know you told me to keep an eye out for him being 'down in the dumps,' but there's no other word for this than moping. He doesn't talk much (less than usual) and he's always drawing something or other in his notebook. He's not sick like you thought – just moping. He's been like this ever since you left._

_Don't worry though, I've been trying to cheer him up. Took him to Coney Island, but he puked on the Cyclone. I've stuck to safer things since then like soda fountains and the pictures. Even tried taking him to the museum. The museum, Alice! Didn't work, but never let it be said that I didn't try. Of course whenever he suspects that I'm trying to make him feel better he finds it highly offensive._

_Why do I stick with this punk anyway?_

_He'll be alright, though. I still miss the hell outta you, and we didn't have whatever it is you and Steve have got going on. Anyway, enough about us being a pair of mooks. How are you doing? Steve read me your descriptions of Vienna and your life there, and I gotta say I can easily picture you as a snooty rich girl swanning about from one party to another. Suits you. Do you own a pair of those tiny opera glasses? I bet you do._

_Yours in crime,  
Bucky_

_March 20th__, 1936_  
Vienna  
Dearest James Buchanan,

_Thank you for letting me know about Steve, he's seemed down in his letters but you know he's the last to admit when he's not doing well. I'm glad he's not sick. Keep on trying to cheer him up – try taking him to a gallery, you know he always likes that._

_You stick with him because he yelled at you for defending him in a fistfight five years ago and you've never had a closer friend since._

_It feels strange writing letters to you both. I realized yesterday that I've never been farther than a few blocks from you both for five years now, and now I'm thousands of miles away._

_Thanks for your flattering description of me – I'll choose to feel complimented instead of offended, because half the time I feel like the people around me are so fancy and high-born that I'm a fraud. For your information I do _ _ not _ _own a pair of opera glasses. (We rent them at the theater)._

_I just tried to picture you and Steve here in Vienna, and while it was a funny image at first it mostly made me homesick. I'd love to show you both around here. Steve especially would love it._

_Truthfully though, I can't imagine you anywhere else but in Brooklyn, charming a young woman who will inevitably end up slapping you across the face the next week. Perhaps it's for the best that you don't come to Austria! The women here have strong arms._

_Cordially,  
Alice_

* * *

_May 6__th__, 1936_  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,

_Yes, the music here is very different from back home. Jazz and swing are popular among the people my age but there's much more resistance to it here. Jazz was banned in Germany last year, as well as anything by a Jewish artist. The ban doesn't apply in Austria but its effects are felt._

_I have a phonograph in my room (there are three in the house). My uncle only has classical German music and operas, but I've already bought a few jazz records in secret (there are some places in town still selling them). Having Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and Bessie Smith once more in my bedroom is like a taste of home._

_Last week while my uncle was out of town, Jil_ _í brought me to a music club downtown. To my complete surprise the music there was just like what I'm used to hearing at a dance hall back in Brooklyn! I walked in to the sounds of Earl Hines, and I'm not too proud to admit I teared up. It reminded me so much of dancing and singing with Matthias around our living room like a pair of idiots._

_Apparently there's a group of people in Vienna – most of them younger than me – who are crazy about American music and dancing._

_I was happy to just sit with _ _Jil_ _í but word got out that I'd lived in America (and was related to an actual musician), and soon I ended up talking about my life back in Brooklyn to this crowd of enthralled teenagers. I ended the evening by singing for them._

_I think the singing is what sunk me. Word got out, my uncle found out that I'd been to the club, and he punished me by having the phonograph moved out of my room (thank god I'd hidden my records). He was spitting mad too, going on and on about my singing "degenerate" music. So now I'm forbidden from going back to the club._

_I'll be more careful not to get caught next time._

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

Excerpt from article '_What were the Germans listening to?' _by Sadie Brunnheim (2008):

_Despite the push away from "degenerate music" there was a section of the younger middle-class German populace who enjoyed the more American music trends of swing and jazz. This manifested in 1939 when a collection of Hamburg youths formed the "Swingjugend" ('Swing Youth') as a direct opposition to the increasingly nationalist and anti-American Nazi Youth. Meeting in clubs and cafes, they mimicked American and British ways of life, spoke English instead of German, and greeted each other with the cheery cry of "Swing Heil!"_

* * *

_June 10__th__, 1936_  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,

_I've asked Bucky to stop dobbing me in, but he's made no promises. Yes, I did get in a fight. No, you don't need to worry about me. Aside from a black eye I'm fine – and we both know I've had enough of those to know how to look after myself. Bucky's started training me in boxing again (I think he wants to try to physically knock some sense into me)._

_The last day of high school fast approaches – can't come soon enough for me. I'm not really looking forward to the graduation ceremony, though mom is. I always thought I'd be graduating with you. As for work, _ _Mr Wells at the advertising firm said that my sketches were good enough to get me a commission each month, but he said if I got sick again he'd have to "review our arrangement"._

_I finished reading the Steinbeck novel, let me know when you finish so we can talk about it._

_Did your uncle ever talk to you about that mysterious letter, by the way? Was it a letter from home?_

_Yours,  
Steve_

_June 13__th__, 1936_  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,

_The letter wasn't from home! It was from the Austrian Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts! I didn't even know that my uncle had submitted an application on my behalf, but the letter we got in reply was about my admission!_

_I'm to start tutoring with a few instructors right away, and join properly next semester. I don't think I've been so excited since before I left New York – I'll be learning opera, the classics, composition, piano, and so much more. I never thought I'd be able to study music and now I'm going to attend one of the top institutions in the world!_

_To repay my uncle for his kindness I've been going to more of his social functions and rubbing elbows with all his high and mighty friends. I don't particularly enjoy it, but he seems to enjoy showing me off (and exhibiting my performances). It's a big change from the choir in that freezing little Fulton street church._

_Haven't finished the novel. Hurray for graduating soon! Mr Wells can suck an egg._

_Jil_ _í says to stop getting into fights._

_x Alice_


	5. Chapter Three

1931

At lunchtime the next day Alice collected her tray and looked briefly around the food hall before making a beeline for the end of one of the long dining tables, where Steve and Bucky sat across from each other. Bucky's chin was propped on his hand as he waved his fork in the air, and Steve leaned back laughing.

Alice waited for his laughter to subside before she approached the end of the table. "Hi Steve," she said with a smile. "Enjoying Shakespeare?" They'd just had a double English Literature period.

"Hey," Steve said warmly, glancing up at her. She'd expected his usual shyness, so the easy manner he'd welcomed her almost made her eyes widen. It was as if yesterday while tying knots together, a knot had unraveled within Steve. Across from him, Bucky looked between Steve and Alice with a furrowed brow. Steve cleared his throat. "Well, I don't mind poetry so much. And there's funny parts if you look close enough."

"Right, you've just got to decipher it."

Steve shifted and touched the bench beside him. "Want to sit?"

Alice saw Bucky's eyes widen. "Thanks." She sat, very conscious of the other boy watching her closely. When she'd set her food tray down she met his eyes.

"Moser," Bucky acknowledged.

"Barnes," she replied politely. Steve glanced between them before opting to dig into his lunch.

"Where's your friend?" Bucky asked. "E… Eden?"

"_Edith_ is sitting with Catherine and Sarah Applewood today."

Bucky glanced across the hall to where Alice's friend sat with the red-haired sisters, and then back to Alice. There was a clear question in his eyes: _why aren't you over there?_

"They don't like me."

"I wonder why," Bucky said dryly.

"Bucky," Steve frowned, his mouth full of food. Bucky glanced back at his friend and gave him a half-shrug as if to ask _what_?

Alice, meanwhile, eyed Bucky. The reason the Applewood sisters didn't like her was that they lived a block away from her, and therefore knew about her stepfather and brother. "I don't know," she said eventually. She took a forkful of mashed potatoes from her tray and swallowed it. "Any ideas?"

Bucky's eyes widened, sensing the trap she'd laid for him. His mouth opened and closed a few times. Finally, he just shook his head. "None at all." He dug back into his lunch. "So you two actually like Shakespeare?"

"We can't all be reading _Buck Rogers _comics all the time, Bucky," Steve shot back wryly.

Bucky narrowed his eyes and pointed his fork at Steve. "You little… I read books."

"Name a single book you've read this year," Steve replied.

"I read that Agatha Christie book!"

"You guys read _Buck Rogers_?" Alice cut in, her eyebrows raised. Then she waved a hand. "Of course you do, it's practically your names combined."

"That ain't why we read it," Steve laughed.

"But it is pretty swell," Bucky winked. "Wait, _you_ read _Buck Rogers_?"

"When I can. We can't afford to buy them. But I did get one of the comics for Christmas, the one where he fights Killer Kane in Philadelphia."

"You _own _a copy?" Bucky echoed, wide eyed, and Alice instantly knew that his family was no better off than her own. He scratched the side of his face. "Could you… d'you think you could bring it to school tomorrow?"

Alice looked from him to Steve, who had an identical look of hope on his face. She smiled. "Sure thing."

* * *

Smithsonian Museum Display (2014):

_When Bucky Barnes first met Steve Rogers on the playgrounds of Brooklyn, little did he know he was forging a bond that would take him to the battlefields of Europe and beyond._

_Born in 1917, Barnes grew up the oldest child of four. An excellent athlete who also excelled in the classroom…_

* * *

Not many people noticed that Alice had befriended Steve and Bucky because not much changed. She sat with them at lunch (with Edith and Finn as well, sometimes), sometimes sat near Steve in class, and at church she crept away from her mother after the service to stand at the back of the church with Steve and trade stories about their weekend. Alice also joined Bucky and Steve on their after-school adventures. Mostly that involved tooling around the streets of Brooklyn, though when they had enough money they pooled their resources to buy a Coca Cola at the local soda fountain, or a brown paper bag of candy.

Steve liked to draw, so when he had paper and a pencil to spare he'd sketch the world around them: the view of Brooklyn Bridge from below when they crept onto the shoreline beneath it one afternoon, a pack of pigeons harassing Bucky for his hard-earned hotdog, Alice pinching her nose as she leaned into a trash can to retrieve Steve's shoes which a bully had tossed in. Steve's drawings were shaky and more often than not he scrunched them up and threw them away, but Alice could tell he was getting better. He didn't like people knowing that he drew (probably because they'd tease him for it), so she felt lucky to be in on the secret.

Alice liked the dynamic the two boys had: teasing, easy, and yet utterly loyal. They never made fun of her accent or treated her differently for being a girl. They thought her ability to mimic accents and voices was hilarious, instead of creepy. They shared her taste for adventure, whether they found it in the pages of a comic book or while standing on a jetty at the Red Hook docks with the salty air blowing into their faces. Alice didn't invite them over to her house, nor did they invite her to theirs – Steve's mom worked hard and needed her rest, and Bucky's place was apparently a madhouse. So they kept to the streets or to public places like the library.

Alice liked the way Steve and Bucky stuck up for each other; when one was in trouble the other was sure to follow. Alice was no brawler but she found other ways of sticking up for them.

As the weeks passed Steve realized that if he got into a fight with someone at school, he usually found that by the time he'd gotten out of detention _something _had happened to the person he'd fought with. The older kid who'd tossed his books out of a third floor window ended up with gum in his shoes. The one who'd shoved Steve to the ground after Steve called him out for stealing lunches, well, he went home that day with itching powder on the inside of his collar. Another time, Alice walked right up to the guy who'd tripped Steve over in the hallways and called him out in front of his sweetheart. Word got back one week that one of the school bullies had been scolded by both his mother and his priest after word of his misdeeds somehow made it to them.

Every time, Steve would approach Alice at the end of school and shoot her a _look._

She always confessed. "Too far?" she'd ask.

Steve always shook his head. Because Alice never went after people who didn't deserve it – she was never the bully. She went after the strong people who used their strength to be cruel.

"_You_ need to be more patient," Alice told him one afternoon, poking his stomach and making him cringe. David Chansor had gut-punched him in the restroom during lunchtime. "Stop charging in headfirst and fistfirst, that only ever ends up with _you _getting punched."

Steve spread his hands. "But sometimes you _do _have to do something right away! What if I'd just stood by and watched when Billy Russel threw your book in the puddle?"

She arched her fine, blonde eyebrow. "Then you wouldn't have gotten pushed in the puddle as well, and Bucky wouldn't have gotten punched, and my plan would have gone perfectly."

Steve laughed. "Fine. Then make sure you tell me your plans in advance, so I don't mess them up."

Alice put one hand solemnly over her heart. "I promise – I'll always tell you my plans."

Bucky approached at that, his book strap slung over one shoulder and his stride as confident as ever. "How's the stomach, Steve?"

"Sore."

"I keep telling you, you gotta-"

"Save the lecture," Steve sighed and rolled his eyes.

Alice and Bucky traded a _look_, then Bucky shrugged. "Alright then. Did you get your revenge, troublemaker?"

Alice narrowed her eyes at the nickname, but Bucky only had curiosity on his face, no malice. She shrugged one shoulder. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

She'd put the salted fish from lunch in David Chansor's coat pockets.

Bucky clapped a hand on Steve's shoulder. "That's a yes," he said in a confiding tone. "Alright, it's too cold to be outside today, how about we see if we can sneak into a movie theater?"

"Sounds good to me," Steve said, still bleakly rubbing his stomach.

"I've always wanted to see what being kicked out of a movie theater would be like," Alice said dryly. But she followed them all the same.

* * *

In March, on his fourteenth birthday, Bucky got a book of codes and ciphers from his uncle in the Army. His sisters had started embroidery lessons on Sundays, so after church Alice and Steve rushed the five blocks to Bucky's family's apartment to play board games and pore over the book.

More often than not Bucky and Steve would end up arguing good-naturedly over a game of checkers while Alice curled up in front of the fireplace glued to _Codes, Keys, and Ciphers: Cracking Secrets_. She'd never seen anything like it before except for puzzles in the newspaper. The book described the basics one learned in the Army like Morse code and the international flag system, and delved into more advanced measures such as ciphers used by the Roman Army, a coding device called _Alberti's disk_, and cipher squares. It was mostly math, and Alice thrived on it.

Three weeks later, Bucky handed the book to Alice. "You keep it." He cracked a smile at her wide-eyed expression. "I don't read it at all unless you guys are here, and it's clear you like it more than me. Just, uh… don't tell my uncle."

After another fifteen minutes of convincing, Alice took _Codes, Keys, and Ciphers _home. It replaced _Nancy Drew _on the crate beside her bed. A week later, she knew it back to front. But ciphers were no fun by herself, so she started to teach the simpler stuff to Bucky and Steve so she could try out her skills.

They started with Morse code. Alice wrote out long chains of dashes and dots and waited for the snort or groan from the boys when they decoded the joke she'd written. Once Steve got the hang of it, they started tapping messages to each other in class.

_.- -. ... .- . .-. / - - / ...- ..-.._ [_answer to 3?_] Steve tapped on the top of his desk during their history exam. To anyone else it sounded like he was drumming out the beat to a song, but the rhythm made Alice roll her eyes as she looked down at her paper. When he finished, she ducked her head and looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

He shot her a sheepish grin.

Alice rolled her eyes and tapped her pencil against her desk. _.- -.. -... -. _[_1879_]. Steve made an _ah _sound and started scribbling. A moment later, she continued. _\- .- -.- -... ._ [_maybe_].

After class, Alice and Steve laughed their way to the lunch hall. "Okay, but you can't do that in the math exam," she protested. "I'm pretty sure Mr Letkin knows Morse code."

"Then we'll have to use a better code," Steve said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Alice laughed at him. "You are such a cheater."

"It ain't cheating, it's… teamwork," he said with an easy smile. "Plus, I'm learning _something_."

"I don't think learning Morse code to cheat on your history tests counts as learning."

"We'll see."

* * *

Excerpt from_ 'The Rebirth of Captain America' _by Elspeth Willow (1995), p. 23:

_… at Camp Lehigh in New Jersey, the United States Army taught Steve Rogers everything he knew. He would later use these skills in order to fight the war against the Nazis and HYDRA._

* * *

Alice taught new codes to Steve, and to Bucky when he paid attention. Steve didn't have the passion for it that she did but he was smart and eager to learn. They passed notes in class when they could get away with it, strings of gibberish that the other would have to figure out. It certainly made their more mind-numbing lessons interesting. They developed a set of hand signals for church: a clenched fist on the right knee meant _let's go to Bucky's afterwards_, crossed fingers meant _meet me in the courtyard after the service _(it had a small pond they could skip pebbles across), and a scratched ear meant _look at Mr Bilkins, he's fallen asleep again._

When they taught the hand signals to Bucky he added some more – sweeping the left shoulder to indicate _Steve's about to get punched, time to intervene _(Steve was not a fan, but Alice found she used that signal more often than she liked), some others to do with escaping boring conversations, and his favorite: "See this one you don't have to worry about forgetting," he said cheerily as he held up his middle finger in Steve and Alice's faces.

On the first day of May, one thing dominated the front page of every newspaper in the city. Alice read the headlines on her way home from school, heard her newsie friends rave about it, and when she let herself into the apartment a copy of the _Post _blared the news at her from the kitchen table:

_PRESIDENT AND SMITH OPEN EMPIRE STATE, MIGHTIEST BUILDING._

Alice sighed and flipped the paper over. They'd been building that thing for over a year after knocking down the old Waldorf-Astoria hotel. She'd seen it a few times when she went into the city with her mom; a great hulking thing with spiky scaffolding stretching upward. She supposed they'd quit talking about the 'Race Into The Sky', now that the Empire State Building had beaten the previous world record by a whole 400 feet.

At that moment, Alice's mom walked into the room with Tom propped on her hip. "Alice!" she exclaimed. "_Hast du gesehen? Sie haben es endlich fertig-_" [_Did you see? They have finally finished-_].

"_Das reicht_!" [_That's enough!_] Alice cried, covering her ears and dashing to the radio to stop her mom gushing. But when she swtiched to her favorite station she was met with:

"_And now we will play the songs performed today at the Empire State opening ceremony_-"

"_Ach_!" she threw up her hands and retreated into her room to bury her head in a book.

The next weekend, Alice found herself climbing up the subway stairs of Penn Station into the bright morning sunlight beside Steve and Bucky. They reached the last step, turned to their right, and stopped in their tracks.

Two blocks away the Empire State Building towered into the sky, shining in the sun as its tall spire seemed to brush the clouds. It was a giant standing amidst the smaller buildings in the city, so large that it boggled the mind. Alice had never seen something so _tall _in her life – no one had. She'd seen it from across the river, of course, seen it stretching over the rest of the skyline, but this was different.

She realized her mouth had dropped open, and she snapped it closed with a _click_.

"Holy cow," Steve breathed. Other New Yorkers streamed around them where they stood on the pavement, already used to the giant skyscraper in their midst.

Alice wiped away her astonishment and sniffed. "You know, five people died building that."

Steve and Bucky both glanced sideways at her.

"I'm surprised it was only five," Bucky said. "Now come on, let's go give them our money."

Bucky and Steve rushed ahead, and after a beleaguered sigh Alice hastened to follow them.

They'd been saving for a few weeks for _something _– maybe an extravagant trip to the soda fountain, maybe even Coney Island, but this last week at school Steve and Bucky set their hearts on visiting the tallest building in the world. Alice tried to talk them out of it using every trick of persuasion she knew, but they would not be moved. So here she stood at the foot of the Empire State Building, with a dollar in her pocket.

The ground floor of the building was absolutely packed with people. Alice and Bucky instinctively stepped in close to either side of Steve to act as buffers, and as a pack they inched their way across the shiny marble floors. Alice caught glimpses of the interior, and she was sure it was beautiful, but all she really saw was the throngs of people pressing her in. The room was loud with excited chatter and high-pitched laughter, and it was _sweltering._

They paid their dollar each for an observation deck ticket and then hustled back through the thicket of people toward the line for the elevator.

"It's like a damn carnival," Bucky muttered as a lady wielding a closed umbrella nearly poked his eye out.

"I told you it was stupid to come," Alice muttered back. Between them, Steve rolled his eyes.

After a twenty minute wait they were ushered into a shiny, wood-lined elevator manned by an operator in a smart maroon suit and a hat. They just managed to squish in with about ten cramped-looking adults.

The operator smiled down at them. "What floor, kids? He asked with a wink.

Alice fought not to roll her eyes.

"I'll give ya one guess, pal," Bucky said, somehow making his smart mouth charming enough to not be offensive.

The operator tipped his hat and hit the button at the top of the chrome panel. "Up we go, folks!"

The lift started moving with barely a judder, and Alice's stomach swooped. _102 floors_. Steve's elbow knocked against hers and she glanced across at him. Her growth spurt was kicking in, putting her a couple inches taller than him. His cheeks were pink from the heat in the elevator, and his perpetual frown hung on his brow. Sensing her gaze, he met her eye.

"You okay?" she mouthed. She'd just realized that being around so many people in a cramped space probably wasn't a good idea for someone so prone to getting sick. In the time she'd known him he'd come down with two head colds, a crop-up of hayfever, and had to miss a few days of school because of heart palpitations.

Steve rolled his eyes at her. "I'm _fine_," he mouthed back. Alice shook her head at him, then her eyes snapped wide open as her ears fizzed and _popped_. Steve cocked his head at her only for a similar expression to appear on his face a moment later.

"Don't worry about your ears popping, folks," the operator said with a smile. "It's just your body adjusting to the height. If it hurts, just swallow and your ears should clear."

Alice swallowed and her eyes widened again when the pressure in her ears cleared. She met Steve's eye again and they exchanged a glance.

Finally they reached the top and the doors slid open to reveal another wall of people. Alice, Steve, and Bucky squeezed through the crowds, slipping between pointy elbows and fancy-looking types in expensive hats. The sun beat down on all of them. They slid past a food and drink vendor, scoffed at the prices, and kept pushing blindly through the thicket of people.

After what felt like years of squeezing through close-pressed bodies, Alice's fingers hit stone. "This way!" she urged. She shouldered her way through a gap between two middle-aged women in paisley dresses, closely followed by Steve and Bucky.

She made sure Bucky and Steve made it through to the stone barrier she'd reached, then turned around to have her breath stolen by a blast of cold wind and the view laid out before her.

For a few moments, Alice couldn't catch her breath. Her fingers went white gripping the stone barrier and her eyes stung from staring.

She'd never seen New York like this, never seen _anything _like this. The city below looked like matchbox buildings, everything laid small beneath her feet. Alice could see 5th Avenue arrowing away toward the end of Manhattan Island, toward where Brooklyn Bridge arced up into the sun. The glittering Hudson and East River curved around to each side like cradling arms around the city, and the wide blue sky hung over it all. If Alice squinted she could see the Statue of Liberty standing on her island miles away.

The wind blew strong up here, gusting in Alice's face and making her eyes water. There was nothing between her and New York City but a stomach-high stone barrier. Her hands curled over the edge.

"Holy cow," Bucky muttered, the first of them to speak. He stood on Steve's other side and all three of them stared out at the tiny city below them with their hands on the stone barrier. The noise of the crowd had faded into the background.

"I've lived in New York almost _six _years," Alice breathed. Her eyes roved across the textured tapestry of the city below. "I never imagined it could look like this."

"It's a hell of a view," Steve agreed.

Alice tore her eyes away from the city to look at him. She could see him memorizing the lines of the city, and she knew he'd draw this later. She could have kicked herself for not bringing up some paper for him. It'd be a better drawing first hand than from memory.

Steve eventually glanced away to meet Alice's eyes. "You don't talk much about when you moved here. You moved from Austria, right?"

Alice fought the initial instinct to freeze up and deflect. It was easier here, with the world laid out beneath her and the wind flying fresh in her face. Beside Steve, Bucky looked over curiously.

"I moved here with my mom and dad," she began, her voice soft. "My dad got a business opportunity here. But he, uh… he died not too long after that. Heart attack." She heard Bucky and Steve open their mouths. "I was only seven," she cut in before they could say anything. "I don't really remember him."

"I don't remember my dad either," Steve said in a rush, as if trying to get it out. Alice met his gaze with wide eyes. He'd never mentioned his father before. Steve shrugged one shoulder. The wind blew his hair into his face. "He was in the war."

"I'm sorry," Alice said. It felt sour in her accent. Her father never fought, since he worked for the government, but it could easily have been one of her relatives that killed Steve's father.

As if sensing where her mind had gone, Steve shook his head vigorously. "No, I'm not saying it to…" he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them. "I just mean, I get it. Sometimes I wish I could meet my dad to see what he was like. See if I'm like him."

Bucky, leaning against the stone barrier without a care for the hundreds and hundreds of feet of open air below, nudged Steve gently. "He went to protect his country and his family," he said. "Sounds a lot like something you'd do."

Steve smiled at his friend before turning back to Alice. "So you and your mom… didn't go back to Austria?"

Alice took a breath. "No, Mom decided to make the best of it here. She got a translation job, met my stepfather, and now we're here for good."

"Do you ever wish you could go back?" Bucky's face was uncharacteristically serious as he propped his elbow on the barrier. Steve's dark blue eyes were on Alice.

She bit her lip. "I don't really remember Austria. I remember my family a little – singing to them, mostly, and I remember the street where we used to live. I still remember the language, but that's only because mom uses it all the time so I don't forget."

"You know German?" Steve's eyebrows flew upward.

"_Ja_," she replied with a hint of a smile. "But do I want to go back…?" She gestured to Manhattan stretching away beneath them. "I grew up here. My family's here, my school is here, my…" she nodded at Bucky and Steve. "You guys are here. I couldn't go back."

"Can't get a view like this in Austria," Steve said with a note of relief in his voice, as he echoed her gesture to the city.

"Can't get a view like this anywhere else in the world," Alice added.

They stood there for a few more minutes staring out at New York City from above, until they got shuffled off by the crowds. On the elevator back down Alice put her hands to her stinging cheeks and let out a long breath.

For so long she'd still felt like a new arrival in this city, an outsider. But as she stood with Steve and Bucky in a cramped elevator, her stomach growling and her ears popping, she knew: this was her home.

* * *

Excerpt from article_ '__What to listen to this long weekend', _by Michael Harmon (2015):

7\. _Ongoing podcast series: 'The tragedy of artists who die young'. In this episode, your host Kathleen Morrison discusses seven artists who died in mysterious circumstances, beginning with the strange case of a country musician's airplane tragedy._

* * *

School broke off in June. Alice split her time between helping out her mom and stepfather (usually playing with Tom in the apartment and teaching him inappropriate words), and mucking around outside with Steve and Bucky. But as the streets got hotter they had to retreat inside more often, either to Bucky's raucous house or to the Brooklyn Library, which had just installed air conditioning.

Steve turned thirteen on July 4th, and after his mom took him to a restaurant as a treat for his birthday he joined Alice and Bucky on the shore near the Brooklyn Bridge to watch fireworks fly up across the city. Bucky gave him a brand new set of pencils, which he must have been saving all year for, and Alice gave him the only thing she'd been able to: a warm pair of socks from the tailor shop. He assured her it was a very thoughtful present and slid them onto his feet right there on the edge of the East River.

The next week, after another day of trudging along the sweltering streets from one place to another trying to find somewhere they could sit in peace without being told off for being too loud, Alice stopped in her tracks and said: "Forget this. Follow me."

She brought them to the tailor shop, hushing their increasingly-concerned questions when she swung the door open, making the tiny bell overhead tinkle. "I'm allowed in here," she told them. "Trust me."

They didn't even trade the skeptical glance she was so used to, they just shrugged and followed her in.

The tailor shop was cool after the beating sun outside. It was a narrow, long shop, with only slightly creaky wooden floors, and shelves and racks of neatly-tailored clothes lining the walls. The plaster walls had spidery cracks in the corners. The entire back wall was taken up by hat and shoe boxes. The shop was packed from wall to wall with clothes and displays and tailoring tools, but it was tidy. A single customer, an elderly black lady, perused a rack of ribbons near the front corner. At the far end of the room stood the service desk, behind which sat Matthias, leaning over a humming sewing machine with pins held between his lips.

He looked up as the door tinkled and took in the sight of Alice standing between the tall, dark haired Bucky Barnes and the shorter, blonde and flustered Steve Rogers. His brows furrowed. He turned off the sewing machine and pulled the pins out of his mouth. "Allie, everything alright?"

She shot him a small smile, ignoring Bucky and Steve's curious glances. She did see Steve mouth _Allie? _silently. "I'm fine. Can we sit in the back room a while?"

His eyebrows rose but he nodded. "As long as you can vouch for these gentlemen, of course."

"I can vouch for them," Alice smiled back. Matthias's dark brown eyes warmed and he flicked the machine back on. She turned to Bucky and Steve. "Come on."

She led them past the perusing customer, who barely glanced at them, past the desk where Matthias had already turned back to the dark trousers on his sewing machine, and through a narrow door in the back corner. This opened onto the tenement hallway with the stairs that led up to her apartment, but she turned away from the stairs and opened another narrow door into the cramped, cool back room of the shop.

Alice ushered Steve and Bucky in, watching them as they glanced around the small space with its half-finished commissions, cloth scraps, and old, clunky machines. She knew this space well, since she'd been visiting the shop ever since her mom started dating Matthias. She liked the way the room always had something new and surprising in it, and had fond memories of Matthias teaching her his trade in here while the tinny radio on the workbench crooned out the latest jazz from Harlem. She knew her way around each of the strange-looking machines, and the boxes of needles and pins. She leaned over to turn on the old, dusty fan and sighed as cool air blew against her skin.

"What is this place?" asked Steve over the rattle of the fan. He lowered himself onto one of the stools set out, looking around. Bucky paced the circumference of the room and peered at the commission tags for each item of unfinished clothing.

"It's a tailor shop," Alice said. "And it's quiet back here." To prevent any further questions she delved into a box on a high shelf and pulled out a deck of cards. "What do you want to play?"

The three of them started using the back room of the tailor shop as a kind of retreat during the sweltering days of the summer break. They'd tramp into the shop, say hi to Matthias, and then retreat into the back room. They played cards and board games and listened to the radio, elbowing each other to get better access to the cool air from the fan.

Alice never explicitly told Steve and Bucky why she was allowed in the shop. She knew they assumed that Matthias was another one of her many acquaintances, and she did nothing to correct them. They were friendly enough with Matthias, but never usually exchanged more than a greeting with him. Matthias knew about Steve and Bucky, of course, and over dinner each day he'd ask Alice what they got up to. She thought maybe Matthias knew that she was keeping her exact relationship with him a secret. It made her feel… strange.

Until one slow, hot afternoon. Bucky leafed through an adventure story in the corner while Alice watched Steve sketch a comic strip about the three of them as soldiers, when Matthias slipped into the back room.

"Afternoon, kids. Still alive back here?"

"Just about," Bucky replied. "Thanks again."

Matthias leaned against the door jamb and waved a hand, the other smoothing down his vest over his neatly pressed white shirt. "It ain't no problem." He often came to the back room for supplies, but he usually never stayed longer than it took to give them a friendly nod. "Hey, Allie?"

Alice looked up from where she'd been peering over Steve's shoulder and raised her eyebrows. Her cheeks were pink from the residual heat in the back room and her rumpled blouse was untucked from her skirt.

"Need your help," Matthias said, tapping the side of his head. "I can't remember the name of that new song – the one from the movie?" He looked upward, as if searching for the answer, then shook his head frustratedly. Steve looked over his shoulder. "Was thinking about it just now, the shop's so quiet. You know the one-" Matthias hummed a few bars, making both Bucky and Steve look up with raised eyebrows.

Alice cocked her head. This was something she and Matthias did often, humming half-remembered songs and snatches of lyrics until they had the song. For a moment she hesitated at Steve and Bucky's presence, but then shook away her fears. She'd invited them here, she trusted them – and she wasn't going to pretend Matthias wasn't the closest thing she had to a father. So she focused on Matthias's low humming.

The tune was slow and lilting, a little jazzy, and soon she joined in with the lyrics. "_You came to me_," she sang with a smile growing on her face, "_from out of nowhere_." Matthias clapped his hands, eyes alight, and kept humming. "_You took my heart, and found it free._" Alice drew in a steady breath, her voice clear in the cramped room. "_Wonderful dreams, wonderful schemes, from nowhere. Made every hour sweet as a flower to me_…" she trailed off with a grin. "Bing Crosby," she added, and Matthias clapped his hands again.

"That's the one!" he exclaimed. He turned to Bucky and Steve, who had been staring at Alice and who now turned to stare at him as he pointed at Alice. "Better than a record label for remember this stuff, I swear." He leaned over to ruffle Alice's hair, laughing when she swatted him away, then called: "Dinner at six, Allie!"

A moment later he was gone again, pulling the back room door shut behind him. His laugh echoed in the hallways beyond.

A short silence fell in the small room.

Bucky spoke first. "Who… is that?"

Alice met his eyes. "Matthias," she said, as if he was stupid. Despite her trust in Bucky and Steve, her heart hammered against her chest.

"And he's your…?"

The way that Bucky asked, with no malice or suspicion, made Alice's hackles lower. Both boys looked at her with furrows in their brows, but she saw no disgust at the familiar way she'd spoken with Matthias. She let out a breath. "He's my stepfather."

Both pairs of eyes widened. But unlike most people who found out, they didn't react with side-eyes or cool distancing.

"Huh," said Bucky.

After another moment Steve said: "You're lucky, he's a really interesting guy." Then he went back to his drawing, his tongue between his teeth as he shaded Alice's helmet.

Alice adored them.

"So Steve said you could sing," Bucky said, "but I didn't know you could _sing _sing."

She frowned. "What does that mean?"

"You're… y'know, good at it."

She glanced over at Steve, who was still looking at his drawing but whose cheeks had gone pink. "Thanks for the glowing recommendation, Steve," she said wryly.

His head jerked up. "I said you were good! No, I'm pretty sure I said you were _better _than good."

"Let's have an encore then," Bucky announced. He swiveled to the boxy radio on the workbench, turned it on, and the fast-paced voice of a news anchor met their ears. Bucky muttered under his breath and started turning the dials.

"Hang on," Alice protested, "I'm not going to _perform-_"

"Then we'll sing with ya! My sisters do it all the time, c'mon. You're in, right, Steve?"

"I'm not sure I have a choice," Steve sighed. He scratched the back of his neck and shared a glance with Alice.

Bucky had finally found a new station, and his eyes lit up when the first few bars of _On The Sunny Side of the Street _crooned out. Alice sighed.

Bucky whirled around on his stool, casting a mischievous glance at Alice and Steve on the other side of the room. "_Grab your coat, and get your hat!_" he sang in time with the singer, miming the actions. Steve put a hand over his eyes. "_Leave your worries on the do-orstep._" The radio singer was really hamming up the lyrics, and as if taking it as a challenge Bucky threw his arms open and started bouncing his shoulders to the music. Alice found herself laughing. "_And just direct your feet," _Bucky sang, louder now,_ "on the sunny side of the street. _Steve!"

Steve joined in for the next line, peeling his hand away from his eyes and casting a disgruntled look at Bucky. _"Can't you hear that_ _pitter-pat_?" His voice was quiet and thin, but Alice had never heard him sing before and she found she quite liked the earnest way he delivered the words and the concentrated furrow in his brow.

Bucky drew her attention away by gesturing at her from across the room, his eyebrows raised as he warbled over one of the low notes. He beckoned. Alice shook her head at him. But then Steve looked over at her as well, smiling despite himself, and he and Bucky both sang: "_Life can be so sweet…_"

"_On the sunny side of the street!_" Alice joined in. She shook her head at the both of them despite the smile pulling at her lips, and laughed over the start of the next line as Bucky crowed in jubilation and Steve's mouth curved up on one side.

Laughing at themselves and the showy radio performer, the three of them sang along for the rest of that song and the next one, outdoing each other in volume and in ridiculousness until Alice's mom came down into the back room and told them to hush, because Tom was asleep. They apologized and went back out onto the street outside, still singing, and as they strolled up the street a rainbow shone in the mist. Alice laughed while she sang, her voice clearer and stronger than it had ever been in the stiff, dusty churchroom.

* * *

** _~ Sing for me ~_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to extend a big thank you to Bimbumel2, who really helped me out with the German translations! Vielen Dank ❤
> 
> Remember there's a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmyEFm4fuH4p0qf3_NdQOQAiG9x82GOVH) on YouTube, which features the 'hammed up' version of On the Sunny Side of the Street, and a [moodbard](https://www.pinterest.com.au/ehollis0871/the-siren/). See you next time, you guys are the best!


	6. Letters Across the Ocean (3)

**Nick Bantock: ** ** _Letter writing is an excellent way of slowing down this lunatic helter-skelter universe long enough to gather one's thoughts._ **

* * *

_August 3__rd__, 1936_  
Berlin  
Dear Steve,

_I remember listening to the last Olympic games on the radio, sitting in the back room of Matthias's tailor shop with you and Bucky. Los Angeles seemed so far away then._

_Little did I know then that I'd be at the opening ceremony of the very next games!_

_My uncle took us to Berlin last week, and we underwent a whirlwind of sightseeing and parties. If I'd thought things were getting very strange in Austria, it's nothing to Berlin – you can hardly turn around without seeing an enormous red Nazi party flag, and everybody greets each other with a one-armed salute. It's weird. Even the parties with high-flying government men and socialites are strange; everyone enjoys themselves as much as they can, but even I can see there are tensions. Tight smiles and tense handshakes. I've more than once been described as an 'Aryan beauty', which I can't hear without knowing that the speaker would take one look at my brother and turn up his nose._

_And there's none of the criticism for the government here that there is in Austria – everything I've read in Austria (and in New York) about assassinations and people being dragged out of their homes has been forgotten here. Still, it's possible they're just putting on a united front for the Olympics._

_Anyway, Olympics. We ended up in the enormous stadium with hundreds of thousands of people. I got to see the Hindenburg fly past, flying the Olympic flag behind it – Steve, seeing something that large in the sky that isn't a cloud is _staggering. _The rest of the ceremony was suitably spectacular, and the games were formally opened by none other than Mr Hitler himself. I really saw him, Steve, though from a distance. Before he appeared the crowd was crying out for him like they'd die if he didn't, and when he arrived the noise was so loud I had to cover my ears. They absolutely adore him, and hang on to his every word. My uncle joined everyone else in the crowd in giving the Nazi salute. He saw that I didn't and scolded me, but… I don't know how to feel, Steve._

_The atmosphere at the ceremony was all celebration and excitement, but I couldn't join in. I enjoyed seeing the countries parade through with their flags, and seeing the Hindenburg, but I think I know too much. I know that initially all Jewish and black people were banned from participating, and Jil_ _í told me that some of her Romani cousins in Berlin had been arrested in the leadup to the event. And yet no one else I've spoken to seems to see anything wrong in this. My uncle says it's a good thing, that Germany and Austria can show off their strong, Christian young men._

_Thinking about home, about you, helps remind me of what my real feelings are. I so easily slip into pretending – pretending I fit in, pretending I'm my uncle's perfect niece, that the views expressed around me just… slide off me. I'm very used to being silent. But then I think about the things the German F_ _ü_ _hrer says, and I think that if you and I were to hear him say those things on the streets of Brooklyn, I'd have to hold you back from trying to punch him in the face._

_I think I've not been really myself since I came here. I've never struggled with something like this before. There's just so many people around me and so little time to myself, I don't know who I am here. But even if I'm right, and this is wrong… what can I do about it? I'm a seventeen year old girl relying on the kindness of her uncle to make her way in the world. Who would listen to me?_

_Please tell me I'm not going crazy._

_Yours,  
Alice_

_PS: In the nations parade, every country lowered their flag as they passed the F_ _ü_ _hrer. Except for the United States. My cheering felt a little more genuine at that moment._

* * *

Excerpt from The History Place: '_The Triumph of Hitler: The Berlin Olympics'_

_… _ _Tourists entered a squeaky clean Berlin where all undesirable persons had been swept off the streets by police and sent to a special detention camp outside the city… The omnipresent 'Jews Not Welcome' signs normally seen throughout Germany were removed from hotels, restaurants and public places for the duration of the Olympics. Nazi storm troopers were also ordered to refrain from any actions against Jews…_

_Interestingly, visitors wanting to talk to Jews in Berlin about their daily experiences or investigate Jewish life in Nazi Germany were required to contact the Gestapo first, after which they would be closely watched until they departed._

* * *

_August 7__th__, 1936_  
Brooklyn  
Alice,

_You are not going crazy._

_The papers here aren't so in love with Germany as Germany is with itself, and I promise you we're hearing about how the Nazis stray farther from democracy every day, about the arrests of political enemies, Jewish people, and others with no one to speak for them._

_I wouldn't trust anyone who tells you to cheer for them while they kick the defenseless._

_(Let me tell you now that if Hitler was goosestepping around Brooklyn, there'd be no one who could stop me punching him in the face)._

_I gotta admit I was surprised to read that you rely on me to know what's right – all this time I've been relying on you. I think you see things clearer than me sometimes. I let my anger get in my way and I inevitably end up in a fight, but you see and think and figure out what to do. Trust yourself, Alice. Trust your instincts._

_I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the ceremony aside from that. Looks like the US isn't doing too bad for itself in the games, from what the radio tells me, though annoyingly it looks like Germany might beat us in medal count. Oh well. At least we'll beat you pesky Austrians._

_Thinking of you,  
Steve._

* * *

_September 27__th__, 1936_  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,

_I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to reply. I want to say that it's the Academy that's keeping me busy, which is partly true, but I think the past year has just… caught up with me. I feel tired. I'm alone in my sadness here – everyone who knows my parents is either gone or only mentions them in regards to my appearance. I've known that I've been sad these past few months, but in the same way that I know the moon goes around the earth – it doesn't occupy my every waking thought, and it feels very far away._

_I don't feel in control of my sadness. I don't feel in control of much of anything. Whenever my uncle senses that I'm in a low mood his constant refrain is "come, sing, it will make you feel better". It does, in a way. He's started holding concerts. When I sing my feelings have a direction to go, some kind of release. But then my uncle says "come now, cheer up a little for this song. It's patriotic!" So I have to paste on a smile._

_My instructors at the Academy have no complaints, though they're grueling and demanding. I'm learning better technical control. There it is again – control! My music is, I think, the one aspect of my life I still have control over. My efforts must be paying off, because I'm rising the ranks._

_A piece of wisdom from my teacher Ms Muller, poorly translated: "You can't fake opera, darling. Feel first, and then sing."_

_Feeling has never been the problem for me, Steve. It's _showing. _I've gotten so used to bottling everything up so tight that I don't know how to let it out._

_Sorry this has been such a strange, sad letter. Hope everyone's well._

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

_September 30__th__, 1936_  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,

_I've said it before, but I wish I could be in Vienna. Or you in Brooklyn. Either one, so I could look at you myself to see how you're doing, so I could tell you a joke and make you smile. I don't have much time to write (ma's sick, she's down with a fever and a cough – my turn to play nurse) and I'm sorry my reply will be short, but I want you to know that you are _not _alone in your grief. You might be on the other side of the world, but there are people who love you and understand how you feel._

_As for letting out your feelings, it seems to me that you let them out when you sing. You've always been good at keeping secrets, Alice. But you're always telling the truth when you're singing._

_Don't worry about what your teacher tells you to feel. Just feel what you want, and put that to a song._

_Love,  
Steve_

* * *

_October 6__th__, 1936_  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,

_Listened to the Yankees win the World Series on the radio today. I used to be so bored by baseball – it's amazing it can make me feel so homesick now. (Shame about the Dodgers by the way – but we all knew they weren't going to make it anywhere near the finals)._

_Uncle got back to me, one of his connections in the music industry here has asked me to perform a few covers of operettas in his studio. I'm nervous about it._

_Please update me on how your mom is doing when you can – what does the doctor say? I looked back through your letters and you said she was working in the TB ward. It couldn't be that, could it?_

_Love,  
Alice_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a real excerpt from the History Place's series about Hitler. Go check it out!


	7. Chapter Four

The day after Alice turned thirteen school started up again, and Alice and Steve sat next to each other in every class they shared. In English class they both commiserated over the impossible slog of reading _Ulysses, _thanks to their sadistic English teacher. A month later they had the school field day. Steve was allowed to come but not to participate, out of fear he'd blow a lung or something. Bucky won the 100 yard dash and the high jump. Alice came in third in the dash and her team came first in the relay race. Steve cheered their victories, but Alice could see that it burned him to not be able to even _try. _That afternoon she treated the boys to a paper bag of candy from the money she'd earned helping out at the tailor shop over the summer.

In the middle of October, as cold started to bite at the evening air, Alice dug a broken radio out of the dumpster behind the radio store in the neighborhood. Steve and Bucky made faces at her as she emerged victorious out of the dumpster, but at least helped her carry it back to the tailor shop. She sat it on the workbench in the back room, dusted it off, and got to work.

With the help of a book from the library Alice pulled apart the dinged up radio. It was a Dewald, actually only a couple of years old, with a crack in the wooden paneling and a missing dial. It was about the size of a briefcase. Steve and Bucky checked in on her progress over the weeks. Bucky tuned out when the discussion got too technical, but Steve listened to Alice's clunky explanations with a silent seriousness – granted she still didn't know much about the electrical side of things, but she knew enough not to start a fire.

She'd really only brought the radio home to see what the insides of one looked like (because her mom and Matthias would _never _let her pull apart the home radio), but after a week and a half she realized the only reason the thing didn't work was because one of the wires was misaligned from its tube. She fixed it and put it all back together with bated breath, and just about fell off her chair when she was met with the wondrous sounds of radio static.

Her mom and Matthias let her keep her new-found radio in her room as long she kept to her bedtime and didn't play it too loud. But her new hobby didn't end there – she read a few more books at the library, and kept dragging Steve and Bucky back to the dumpsters behind the radio store. Mostly she only got garbage, but she began to gather a collection of wires, capacitors, and resistors. An older friend of hers who hawked second-hand goods gave her a pair of telegraph keys as a late birthday gift.

Another week passed, and Alice had figured out how to send Morse code messages through the radio waves. It was simple, really – she'd had to cannibalize her radio set a little to connect it to the telegraph key and did some reading on continuous waves and frequencies.

Now she had the _capability _to send messages and a spare telegraph key, but no one to send messages to.

She gave the key to Steve the next day along with a handwritten page of instructions for how to set it up. He'd been playing around with the radio at his house, inspired by Alice's tinkering, and luckily his mom didn't mind too much. She'd been taking a lot of night shifts at the hospital lately, so anything that kept Steve entertained was alright in her book.

That evening Alice lay in bed staring at her cracked, scuffed radio as it crackled soft static from an unused frequency. Her room had a tiny sliver of a window, from which shone orange streetlight that slanted across her tan bedsheets. The city outside wasn't quiet, it never was, but the soft static from the radio seemed to swallow up all other noises. Alice's eyes drifted shut.

Then a _beep _cut through the static. Alice jerked upright in bed, wide-eyed, then shook herself and focused on the incoming disruptions over the crackly radio frequency. She no longer needed to write down the dots and dashes.

_..-/.-../-.-/.../..././..._[_ULYSSES_].

A grin broke out across her face. The Joyce novel's title had become somewhat of an in joke between them, and she'd designated it as their code word for the lonely radio frequency. Still grinning, Alice scrambled for her telegraph key and tapped out an echoing reply.

She pictured Steve, alone in his house just a few blocks away, grinning to himself as he heard her dots and dashes over the radio in his living room. She wasn't sure why the mental picture made her feel so warm.

They tapped messages back and forth well into the night, until Alice fell asleep with the telegraph key in her hand.

* * *

Excerpt from _'The Golden Age of Radio'_ by H. F. Lister (2004), p. 8:

_… _ _at the end of the 1930s more than 28 million American households owned a radio. This was the first form of mass unity, a precursor to the internet. It seeped into every part of life – music, theater, politics, religion, war, news: all of it moved to the radio. President Roosevelt held 'fireside chats' over the radio. Every household had their favorite programs; from news broadcasts to radio dramas and comedies._

_It was the technology that revolutionized the era._

_It was also the technology that would fuel the highs and lows of the war to come._

* * *

Their night-time code messages became a regular occurrence – time consuming and often plagued by poorly-maintained technology, but a routine they both enjoyed. They developed their own shorthand. Steve found a way to communicate his dry, startlingly clever sense of humor through Morse code that sometimes had Alice laughing in the staticky silence of her bedroom.

There was something about being able to speak to her friend through sound waves ricocheting through the air that made Alice feel as if they were performing magic.

Until one night, when at their usual radio time Alice was met with nothing but silence over the radio waves. She tapped out _ULYSSES _about ten times until she realized Steve wasn't going to answer. _Maybe his radio's not working. Maybe he went to sleep. _She shrugged, pulled her sheets up and went to sleep.

The next morning at school, Alice sat next to an empty desk through homeroom. Then in French. Then in History. When lunch came around, she made a beeline for where Bucky sat by himself at the end of one of the long tables.

"Where's Steve?" she said by way of greeting.

"He's home sick," Bucky replied. Then he caught the look of concern on Alice's face. "He's been sick before, Alice, what's the worry for?"

"He… missed the radio check in last night."

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Right, the _radio._"

Alice's worry for Steve paused for a moment and she cocked her head. "Bucky, are you jealous?"

He raised an eyebrow. "You think I'm jealous?"

She spread her hands. "You're welcome to join in on the radio calls, you just need-"

"Believe it or not, Alice," he said, his eyebrows still raised, "I talk to you and Steve enough. I don't need to spend my evenings figuring out how to talk to you more using a complicated code over the radio."

Alice's shoulders dropped. "Oh. Well, it's fun."

"I'll take your word for it." Bucky's eyes glinted with amusement.

"So what's Steve sick with?"

"Dunno. It's getting round to 'flu season though – I keep telling him to ease up on himself but it's like trying to ask a bull to not chase a red flag."

Alice's mouth curved up at the comparison, but she couldn't help the worry flickering in her chest. "You're probably right," she murmured. She sank down across from him and the two of them chatted about the movie they'd all seen on the weekend. Towards the end of lunch Edith and Finn joined them. Alice was surrounded by friends, but she couldn't put aside the _off _sensation of not having a short, heavy-browed blonde boy by her side.

Steve wasn't at school the next day either. He'd also missed last night's radio check in again. At lunch Bucky still didn't know anything, and he shared her frown.

The day after that, Bucky informed Alice that Steve's mom had called his folks and told them that Steve was out with a fever, and had asked Bucky to pick up Steve's homework for him. Alice went back to her classes feeling… a little lost. After talking to Steve every day suddenly he'd been completely cut out of her life. And with Steve's already poor health the idea of him with a fever made her very nervous.

For a whole week Alice sat beside empty desks and transmitted _ULYSSES _into the silence at night.

After _another_ week of no Steve, she reached her limit. After the last bell at school she knocked on the office doors of each of Steve's teachers and offered to take his homework home for him. They told her that Bucky had already collected it all. So Alice thought for a few minutes, then sneaked a page of homework for another grade off one teacher's stack and folded it between two of the books in her leather strap. She had an excuse now.

* * *

Bucky had plans to go see _Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde _with Nancy Bell from his class, so Alice found herself walking alone through the streets towards Steve's house. She knew where to go because they'd walked home together a few times.

Alice stared up at the brick tenement with its rattly metal staircase for a few moments before she took a deep breath and walked up to the second floor. A family with three toddlers thundered down the stairs as she ascended.

At the wooden door she straightened her uniform, tucked her hair behind her ears, then reached out and knocked.

For a few moments she thought that no one would answer. But then there were quiet steps from behind the door, the handle jiggled, and it swung open.

A lady with shoulder-length blonde hair and curious blue eyes wearing a paisley house dress stood in the doorway. At first her gaze was directed up, where an adult's head would be, but then she looked down and met the eyes of the schoolgirl standing on her stoop.

"Hello Mrs Rogers," Alice said politely. "My name's Alice Moser, I go to school with Steve. He hasn't been in a couple of weeks, and Mr Backley said that he forgot to give this piece of homework to Bucky Barnes to bring for Steve?" She pried out the sheet of paper and looked up hopefully into Mrs Rogers' face.

The older woman smiled. "Of course, you're the Alice Moser who sings so beautifully at church. Come in, Alice."

Alice followed Steve's mom into the apartment and shut the door behind her.

The Rogers's apartment was small, but comfortable. Just from a glance around the living room, with its threadbare couch and the stack of food coupons on the counter, Alice could see that they were struggling a little with money. _Who isn't_, she thought dryly as Mrs Rogers invited her to take a seat. But despite the signs of struggle, Alice could tell there was a lot of love in this place. Steve's drawings were displayed prominently, there were daisies that looked like they'd been picked from beside the sidewalk in a jug on the coffee table, and the air felt _warm_. It was clear they couldn't afford much in the way of decorations, but on the far wall hung a ornately-framed photograph of a strong-jawed man in military fatigues. _Steve's dad. _Alice fought the instinct to get up and ogle the photo.

The house radio sat on a bench in the corner, with a couple wires snaking out the back of it and connecting to a dusty telegraph key. A lump rose in Alice's throat.

Mrs Rogers set Alice up with a steaming cup of tea and a plate of biscuits. Alice had never been invited into a home like this before and treated like a _guest. _She liked it. Mrs Rogers asked her a few polite questions about school before Alice asked after Steve.

Mrs Rogers had an open, kind face, but her mouth tightened for a half second before she gave Alice a reassuring smile. "He's just resting now. He's a trooper, that boy – got no quit in him. He'll be alright. He's come through the worst of it already."

"The worst of it?" Alice frowned. "The worst of what?"

"Rheumatic fever."

Alice's stomach bottomed out. The horror she felt must have shown on her face because Mrs Rogers leaned over and set a steady hand on her shoulder.

"Oh, Alice-" Mrs Rogers shook her head. "I promise you, I know these illnesses and I know Steve, and if there were cause to be afraid I would be afraid." She met Alice's eyes firmly. "Steve _will _be alright."

Alice let out a pent up, shaky breath. "Are you _sure_?" She'd heard of people dying from rheumatic fever before. Or never being the same again. She looked down the hallway to where Steve's room must be. She pictured him lying still and silent in his bed with his eyes closed.

"I'm sure," Mrs Rogers said firmly. "He'll have to be more careful about his heart in the future, but he's safe now."

"So what… what _happened _to him?" Alice kicked herself for not coming sooner, for not _doing something_. Steve had been here, suffering, while she'd gone about her usual life as if he didn't matter.

She listened carefully as Steve's mom explained the details of rheumatic fever to her, and asked questions about how it could have happened and how he would get better. After her fifth question, Mrs Rogers smiled again.

"You're remarkably bright, Alice. Have you ever thought about becoming a nurse?"

Alice thought about it. "Maybe. I think I'd like to help people."

"I can see why you and Steve get along then. Sometimes he wants to help people a little too much," she sighed fondly.

"Oh I know," Alice said a little too quickly, then took a sip of her tea to cover it up.

A clock on the mantelpiece chimed and she looked up. "Oops, I've got to head home now. I have to help put my baby brother to bed. Thank you for the tea, Mrs Rogers!"

"You're very welcome." Steve's mom followed her to the door. "I know young Bucky is Steve's shadow, but it's good to see Steve has other friends who want to make sure he's okay."

Alice smiled thinly. She had been… slow to share her life with Steve and Bucky, which meant they had been slow to share in return. No wonder Steve's mom didn't know a lot about her.

She shook away the thoughts and readjusted her book strap on her way out. At the doorstep she paused and turned around. "Is there anything… that Steve needs? I can get things."

Mrs Rogers smiled. "All he needs now is medicine, hot tea, and sleep, and we have plenty of that to go around. Thank you, Alice. I'll see you at church."

"Of course. Bye!"

* * *

At church that Sunday, after the choir recital and the service was over, Alice found Mrs Rogers amongst the congregation. She'd been disappointed to see that Steve wasn't with her – he must still be resting.

After a polite greeting, Alice handed Mrs Rogers a small package of tea. The other woman looked from the package to Alice with raised eyebrows.

"It's a lemon herb tea," Alice explained seriously. "One of my relatives recommended it for fevers. They said it 'soothes and regulates temperature'. I thought it might help Steve get better."

Mrs Rogers looked again from Alice to the tea. "Oh my…" she said in a softer voice. "Wherever did you get it?"

"Harlem." Matthias's sister had recommended the tea for Tom when he had a fever last year, so yesterday Alice had caught a train into Harlem to ask for another package. But Alice knew very well what most folks round these parts thought of Harlem.

Alice tipped up her chin and eyed Mrs Rogers in silence, waiting to see if she'd get the usual widened eyes, half a step back, followed by an upturned nose and a _no, thank you very much_.

But Mrs Rogers' eyes just softened at Alice's defiant stance and her other hand came to rest over the tea package. "Thank you for being so thoughtful," she murmured. "I'm sure Steve will appreciate it."

"Oh you don't have to say it's from me," Alice said quickly.

"Nonsense, he should know who his friends are."

"Hm. Alright."

* * *

That night at eight o'clock, Alice's radio came to life.

_ULYSSES._

Her heart leapt and her fingers fumbled over the telegraph key until she was able to respond in kind. She held her breath waiting for the next reply.

-.. .. -.. / -.- - ..- / ...- .. ... .. - / - -.- / ... - ..- ... . ..-.. [_DID YOU VISIT MY HOUSE?_].

Alice tapped back a reply as quickly as her fingers were capable. -.- . ... .-.-.- / .- .-. . / -.- - ..- / - -.- .- -.- ..-.. [_YES. ARE YOU OKAY?_].

\- .. .-. . -.. .-.-.- / - ... .- -. -.- ... / ..-. - .-. / - . .- [_TIRED. THANKS FOR TEA._].

Alice let out a deep, relieved sigh. The force of it took her by surprise, as did the sensation of a weight falling off her shoulders. She thought about it as she composed her reply to Steve. She didn't realize how anxious she'd felt with literal radio silence from Steve and rumors about his health flying around school. Hearing his words, if not his voice, meant more to her than she'd realized.

She finished her message relaying her relief that he was okay, then added a few final dots and dashes:

\- .. ... ... . -.. / -.- - ..- [_MISSED YOU_].

* * *

Excerpt from '_Captain America: Origins_' by P Barker (2000), p. 36.

_Few records remain of Steve Rogers's mother Sarah. We know that she married her husband Joseph in 1914 on the cusp of World War II, and gave birth to their only son a few months after Joseph died of a mustard gas attack._

_Sarah supported the small family by herself on her nurse's income, raising her son with the upright sense of justice that would see him through his adult years. She died of tuberculosis, contracted at the ward she worked in, in 1936._

_Beyond these facts, Sarah's legacy is defined only by what her son would become and accomplish._

* * *

Steve walked into the school yard one morning a week later, wearing three jackets and a scarf so thick he could barely move his neck. His mom had wanted him to wait another week to go back to school, but Steve had finally managed to bring her around. If he had to stare up at his bedroom ceiling for another day he was liable to start screaming.

He made it about ten steps onto the school yard before he saw a blur of blonde hair out of the corner of his eye and was suddenly bundled into a tight hug by none other than Alice Moser.

"Steve!"

He blinked, teetering a little from the suddenness of her hug, and registered the feeling of her arms wrapped surprisingly tightly around him and her warmth seeping through his layers. He only just thought to hug her back before she pulled away again.

He saw her face for a moment – pink-cheeked and grinning – before Bucky appeared beside him and drew him into an even tighter hug.

"It's good to see ya, pal."

Bucky's hug was familiar – Bucky had always been physically affectionate, always throwing an arm over his shoulder or slapping him on the back. So that didn't explain why Steve felt rooted to the spot, not capable of much beyond blinking and standing stiffly with his arms by his sides.

He thought about it and realized that beyond fleeting brushes, he and Alice had never really touched before. They'd never hugged. As Bucky pulled away Steve realized he could smell Alice, as if she'd left traces of herself behind when she hugged him: she smelled like warm wool, the lingering smoke from a faulty heater, and soap. Her hair had brushed the side of his cheek when she pulled away and her tight grip around him had warmed him up from the inside.

_Cool it, pal, _he told himself. He'd started noticing girls in the last year (not that they ever noticed him back), but he refused to do that with Alice. He was still figuring things out, but he knew that noticing her like _that _would… change things. Before he got sick he was there when Beth McKintosh slapped Bucky in the lunch hall. He remembered how after the startlingly loud _crack _Beth had turned away and burst into tears.

He never wanted that to happen with him and Alice.

So he shook away the things he'd noticed. It helped that Alice wasn't even looking at him any more; her green eyes darted around the yard, always watching. Watching everyone, but not him. Weirdly, that thought made him smile. He knew Alice well enough by now to know that she only watched the people she didn't know, didn't trust, so she could see them coming. She didn't need to keep an eye on Steve.

Bucky was talking, and Steve really tried to listen, but he knew he was still watching Alice. She'd cut her hair over the summer, leaving her almost translucent blonde hair brushing her shoulders, and her white and grey school uniform was just as clean and tidy as usual – as if she never wanted to stand out by having a turned collar or a wrinkle in her shirt. It was a far cry from Steve, who always appeared _rumpled _no matter how hard he tried not to.

He still remembered how he'd initially distrusted her last year – her friendly, open façade with that wall of secrets behind it. But back then he'd thought she was hiding something bad; malice, maybe. Now he knew that she was just afraid to expose herself. She saw her accent and her background and her family as things she could be kicked down for, so she hid them. She hid herself away. Steve could understand that, but he also saw that the only thing she hid was her simple, generous kindness.

His ma always said to keep the kind people close to you.

That wasn't the only reason he wanted to keep Alice close (_she smells nice and she's warm and has very pretty green eyes and_ – _no_). He liked her dry, subtle sense of humor and how she got so passionate about the things she was interested in. He liked competing with her to be the best in their classes, while neither of them acknowledged the competition. He liked how she saw a problem, like the radio, and sat down and worked until she'd figured it out.

He liked how she took codes that were once used to disguise war secrets and used them to speak to him in the dead of night about nothing more serious than what she'd had for dinner.

Alice finally sensed Steve's eyes on her and looked back at him. Her head cocked. "Steve? Are you okay?" Her hand drifted towards him and he watched it come closer until her fingers pressed against his too-warm neck. Bucky had stopped talking. "Do you need to go home again?"

Steve shook his head and swallowed. His ears popped, but the movement helped clear his head. "I'm fine," he said rustily. He looked between his two friends, who looked back at him with identical looks of concern. A smile lifted his lips. "It's good to be back."

* * *

A month later the three of them traveled into Manhattan once more. They had no real purpose in mind, but they had a few cents for the train and a hankering to see clean, bright lights. They peered into the shopfront windows with their dazzling Christmas displays, told each other what they'd buy if they were millionaires, and finally came to stand in front of a twenty-foot fir tree that had, bizarrely, been erected outside Rockefeller Center. It had been decorated with a veritable hailstorm of paper streams, cranberries, and even had a few tin cans tied to the branches.

Bucky and Steve's families had never had enough money to get a tree for Christmas, not even before the Depression, and Alice had only vague memories of the sharp tang of pine leaves, and decorating spiky branches. So this strange tree in the center of Manhattan's glass and concrete forest felt like a strange gift. As if whoever had put it there knew that Alice, Steve, and Bucky needed it. As if the rest of the city, cold and hungry and half of them sleeping without a roof over their heads, needed the tree.

For a few long moments the three of them stood in front of the fir tree, as if it had frozen them in place in their exploration of the city.

When they turned to go, Alice quietly pulled her ribbon out of her hair and tied it to the lowest branch.

* * *

Rockefeller Center Press Release, December 2011

_Today we celebrate the eightieth (unofficial) anniversary of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree tradition. On this day in 1931, in the depths of the Depression, workers at the Rockefeller Center construction site pooled their money to erect a 20 foot Christmas tree. In a tradition that has since attracted millions of visitors, we continue this history by…_

* * *

1932

The next year, Alice turned her attention to her study of languages. She knew German and English already, of course, but with her friend Edith's help she brushed up her French (she tried to help Steve and Bucky with their French as well, to limited success). Yet she wanted to try out other languages. Their school didn't offer much, so Alice turned to her neighborhood. Brooklyn was a veritable Tower of Babel – one could walk down the street and hear conversations in six different languages.

A Spanish family lived down the street from Alice, and she began exchanging niceties whenever she came across them. There were five children of Italian immigrants in her homeroom class alone, who she'd already befriended, and after hearing high, unfamiliar music floating through their apartment building Alice traced it to a Japanese couple who'd just moved in, and started learning the songs. Alice sometimes helped the local baker (a Jewish man from Poland) with his crosswords, and started picking up a few words of his home language here and there.

Steve and Bucky seemed amused by her pursuits when they weren't busy with their own; Bucky had discovered that his lopsided smile and easy charm were good for more than getting out of trouble, and seemed to be taking out a new girl every other weekend. Steve stuck to his hobbies of drawing everything he saw that he liked, and punching everything that he didn't. Alice had her reservations about both of the boys' pastimes, and often found herself running interference to either prevent Bucky from making a complete ass of himself or prevent Steve from getting too badly beaten up. It felt like a full time job sometimes.

Alice still sang in the church choir and with Matthias at home, but she found herself singing alone more often – sometimes she sat up on the roof of their apartment building and watched a hazy sunset as she sang to herself; songs she knew, songs she wasn't sure she'd ever heard before. She played with words and with her voice, exploring the highs and lows contained within herself. Sometimes she felt as if there were someone standing right behind her – a prickle of awareness – but when she looked over her shoulder she saw nothing but empty air. She never told anyone about that, or the singing.

Matthias's band was doing well, and sometimes Alice went to go see them perform. She left every performance grinning from ear to ear, prickling all over from the swinging, dizzying music and the sheer _life _in the audience. As for Matthias and her mom, the neighborhood had mostly gotten used to their presence aside from the occasional dirty look and the general sense that they were being talked about behind their backs. In March, their upstairs neighbor who occasionally cast nasty barbs at Alice's mom found that all her loads of laundry had been turned orange. She came meekly to Matthias for help, and he sorted her out in no time.

It took Alice a few days to get the traces of orange dye off her fingers.

* * *

"Alice, can you grab that – yes, the can of peas. _Danke, Liebling_."

Alice put the can in her basket at the same time as she cast her eyes cautiously about the store – her mom had been told off by a stranger for speaking German once when Alice was eight, and she'd never forgotten it. But no one had noticed the endearment.

It was busy at the store today, the small amount of floor space between the shelves of cans and bags occupied by what seemed like every woman in the neighborhood. Heels clicked on the concrete floor and skirts rustled as women squeezed past each other. The radio in the back corner crooned out a slow, wordless melody that made Alice want to put words to it.

Alice's mom wore her usual ankle-length, clean cut dress; elegant without standing out. She had Tom on one hip – he was a little too old for that now at four years old, but he'd almost had a meltdown when they walked in the store. Alice carried their basket.

Alice's mom grabbed a small packet of flour and put it in the basket, and then finally they walked to the clerk's counter. A woman at the counter was arguing over the price of potatoes so there was a short line behind her. Alice set down her basket and let out a heavy sigh.

In front of them, a tall woman with a finely-made coat and pearl earrings glanced over her shoulder at the sound of Alice's basket and then flicked her eyes over the small family. Alice barely noticed her attention at first, but then sensed the woman looking from Tom, to her mom, and then back to Tom.

Alice's mom glanced up from where she'd bouncing Tom on her hip and met the woman's eyes. She smiled politely and looked away. Tom wiggled his legs until she put him down, then dashed to Alice's side and tapped her knees. Alice poked his nose.

"Where'd you pick him up?"

Alice didn't look up at the woman when she spoke, but every fiber of her being suddenly attuned to her – the tone of the woman's voice, her stance as she looked at Alice's mom, the heavy silence that followed. The woman's eyes glinted as she looked from Tom and back to Alice's mom. Alice glanced out of the corner of her eye and saw that her mom's face had gone very still.

Her mom smiled thinly. "He's mine."

"Oh." The woman's eyebrows rose and she looked from the slight, blonde woman behind her to the dark-skinned child at her feet. Then she looked from Tom to Alice. Alice had stopped playing with Tom, and he started to huff in complaint.

The woman's lip curled. "Well, the apple does fall far from the tree, doesn't it?" She laughed then, quiet and self-pleased. Her arm crossed over her body as if warding them away.

Alice had not moved since the woman first spoke, but her careful inattention had become an outright glare. She couldn't help it: her stomach roiled furiously as if she were about to be sick, her skin prickled, and her ears were flaming red. She faintly heard Tom calling her name.

The tall lady with the pearl earrings and the sharp eyes looked from Tom to Alice, and another flicker of amusement played across her lips. Alice's fingers curled.

"Marie!"

Alice flinched and looked over her shoulder at the sound of her mom's name, and instantly her curled hands fell loose.

Out from behind a shelving display of pickle jars walked a smiling blonde woman in a white nurse uniform, closely followed by a slim, serious-eyed boy with an all-too familiar look of indignation on his face.

"Sarah," breathed Alice's mom, sounding surprised and relieved all at once. She shifted a little to make room for Sarah and Steve Rogers in line behind them, and returned Sarah's greeting smile. "Wonderful to see you, how are you?"

"Oh, busy as ever!" Mrs Rogers adjusted her peaked cap and then set her basket on the ground. Her tone was light, but Alice had known Mrs Rogers for a while now and noticed the tight lines around her eyes – she had clearly heard what the other woman had said. "It's good to see you too. And you, Alice." Alice managed to wipe her glare away with great effort to offer Mrs Rogers a genuine smile, then watched as she crouched down until she was level with Tom. "It's excellent to see you too, young man. Are you treating your mother well?"

Tom touched her outstretched hand almost curiously, then exclaimed: "We're buying dinner!" as if it was a glorious adventure. Alice almost wanted to roll her eyes – so far the store had just made him cry. Half a step behind his mom, Steve met Alice's eyes. He looked like he had that time he'd found her standing in a puddle with a soaking book: torn between concern and indignation. Alice shook her head minutely.

Sarah Rogers got back to her feet with a smile, then set her hand gently on Alice's mom's arm and looked up at the woman standing in front of them in line. "And who is this lovely woman?"

Four pairs of eyes turned to the woman, who had been watching the exchange with widening eyes. Tom pulled the can of peas out of Alice's basket and started rolling it on the floor.

The woman ahead of them glanced at the now small group, folded her arms across her body, then made an embarrassed sort of grumble and turned around. Alice let out a long, slow breath.

"How is Matthias?" Mrs Rogers asked Alice's mom, nudging her basket forward when the line moved up. The tight lines around her eyes faded as she offered a warm smile.

"Oh, you know, trying to do everything at once as per usual. The band's been booked three weekends this month, and…"

The two moms began chatting, leaving Alice and Steve standing a few paces apart. Alice's fingers were shaking.

Steve took shuffling steps around his mom until he was by Alice's side, and ducked his head so he could see her face. "Hi," he murmured softly.

"Hi." Alice couldn't look at him so she looked down at Tom instead. He sat on the ground by their mom's feet, still rolling the can of peas and perfectly oblivious to the complicated things happening around him. Alice felt a bit jealous.

Steve shuffled a step closer, casting a glance at the turned back of the woman in front. Then he followed Alice's gaze to Tom. "That's your brother, right?" He wanted to ask if Alice was okay, but he knew that asking would only make her clam up. He knew that Alice couldn't bear showing when things hurt her, not even to Steve most of the time – you had to come at the problem sideways.

Alice nodded. "Yeah. You'd have seen him at church." She kept her green eyes averted.

"Right, of course. What's it like having a little brother?" The line moved up and they shuffled forward.

"Noisy," Alice replied. "And annoying."

Steve laughed, and the sound made Alice's shoulders relax a little. "Maybe I should be glad I don't have any siblings then."

"I don't know, Bucky seems close enough to being your brother these days."

Steve smiled, then looked into Alice's face. She was still very tense, very focused on the people around them, but her lips were no longer white from being pressed together and he couldn't sense any more anger swirling around her. "I guess so," he agreed. He nudged her toe with his and she met his eye. Her expression was guarded, as if she knew what he was going to ask. _Are you okay?_

So he didn't ask. Because she'd say she was fine, even though she wasn't, but he knew she would be. So he swallowed and said: "_Menschen… Menschen sind dumm_," [_People are stupid_], in clanky German.

Alice let out a burst of surprised laughter. Steve grinned at the sight of her head tossed back and her eyes squeezed shut. When she looked back at him, it was with a fond smile.

"They sure are," she agreed, with a darting glance at the woman in front of them who had reached the counter and was paying for her things. Steve could see her calculating payback in the back of her mind, but then she glanced back at him and it fell away. "They sure are," she echoed, a little resigned but mostly indifferent. She nudged his toe with hers. "Not all of them, though."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The radio facts belong to PBS.
> 
> Happy birthday to thenumbertwentyseven, who has been such a wonderful supporter of this story and the Wyvern ❤
> 
> Everyone still enjoying? Let me know in a comment :)


	8. Letters Across the Ocean (4)

**Phyllis Grissim-Theroux: ** ** _To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere, without moving anything but your heart._ **

* * *

_October 17th, 1936_   
_Vienna_   
_Dear Steve,_

_Bucky wrote to me. _

_I don’t know what to say. But I’m not there, I can only write to you, so I’ll try my best. I am so, so, incredibly sorry. <strike>I can’t imagine</strike>_

_ <strike>I know how</strike> _

_Your mom was one of the best people I knew. She was kind, and generous, and she loved you so much. She must’ve had things just as hard as the rest of us these past years but I never heard her complain even once. She always had a kind word for me, and she taught me that one of the greatest things a person can do is to help the people around them. She taught you never to give up and never to compromise on what’s right, and <strike>that’s why I </strike> that’s one of the most wonderful things about you._

_I’m so sorry, Steve. I know you must have been with her until the end, and I can’t imagine how difficult that would have been. Bucky says you’re going to stay at the house by yourself, which I can’t say I’m surprised by, but if I can ask you a favor: please don’t hesitate to lean on the people around you for support. Let Bucky take care of you a little. It’ll make him feel better. _

_I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to come to the funeral. <strike>I would have if my uncle</strike>_

_I know that nothing anyone says or does can make you feel better. It might get worse with time, rather than better, and any words of comfort are always clichéd. _

_So I’ll repeat another cliché now: I’m here for you, Steve._

_Always yours,  
Alice_

* * *

_October 22nd, 1936_   
_Brooklyn_   
_Dear Alice,_

_Thank you. I'm doing okay, really. You know I'd never lie to you._

_I miss her. It's so strange to be sitting by myself at the kitchen table, feeling like I'm waiting for something, only to remember that she's not on her way home from work. That she's not going to come through the door again._

_Some days I'm fine, lots are rough. But I promise I'll be okay._

_The house is quiet, but Bucky keeps me outside and doing things, and when he's not around I've got the radio._

_As I was reading your letter just now, I remembered something that I'd forgotten for almost five years. You remember when I had rheumatic fever and missed a few weeks of school? Ma walked into my room one of those days, looking all thoughtful._

_"That Alice Moser," she said, "she's a wonderful girl, Steve. You'd do good to keep her close."_

_I haven't let go of your letter since it arrived. My mom was a smart woman, and I'm not about to start ignoring what she told me now._

_Yours,  
Steve._

* * *

_November 3_ _rd_ _, 1936_  
_Vienna_  
_Dear Tom,_

_Happy birthday, little brother! I can hardly believe that you're eight years old, I still remember holding you tucked into one arm, smiling down at your little dark eyes. Of course, then you threw up on me._

_I hope your party with your school friends went well. Molly tells me you were hoping to get a new set of marbles – did you get them? What colors are they?_

_Your present from me should arrive with this letter. It's a record your dad really loved, and I hope you'll enjoy it as well. He always said that he'd never heard an improvised trumpet solo like this one._

_Write back soon, and please try to be more careful with your writing! I could barely read the last letter._

_Lots of love,  
Alice_

* * *

_February 21_ _st_ _, 1937_  
_Vienna_  
_Dear Steve,_

_I feel as if I blinked and have suddenly become a different person. Today I performed an operetta at Brahms Hall in front of a full audience of people who paid to see _me. _These people saw the name Alice Moser and actually spent money on a ticket to listen to me sing. Insane._

_I wore a shockingly heavy snow-white gown, more ornate than anything I used to peer at through the shop windows in Manhattan, with a tiara of all things on my head. I don't know what I've become._

_And I really think people liked it. I know you'll laugh at me for sounding unsure, because you're biased and think I'm the best singer in the world, but as I was singing I felt like the whole world around me was silent and every eye was on me (a terrifying sensation, but gratifying for a performer). My uncle's read a few of the preliminary reviews, and he says they're all ecstatic._

_I don't even know how this happened. One minute I was singing at parties with my uncle's friends, then I was performing operetta covers in a studio, then I was singing songs that had been newly written for me to sing, and now this. I suppose it must be my uncle's connections in the music industry, and my improvement thanks to the Academy._

_This is everything I ever wanted, but I feel strangely like the bird in the story, who is put in a cage and told to sing. I am plied with jewelry, dresses, cosmetics, perfumes, and am taken to all the social functions and gallery openings I should choose to attend (and many that I choose not to)._

_When I object to anything – the overly adorned dresses or the invitation to yet another party, my uncle says "we care for one another, don't we?" I suppose my success as a singer is my version of caring for him. And he does take very good care of me. I'm sorry Steve, I must sound like I'm always finding something to complain about!_

_I find I'm keeping more and more secrets from my uncle. The letters to you, my few real friends in Vienna (Jil_ _í says hello – when she's not off with her man), my secret collection of jazz records. A friend of mine from the swing club recommended a singer named Billie Holliday, and if you haven't already you should listen to her right away!_

_These forbidden voices remind me of home. Of Tom, and Matthias, and my mother. Of your mother. Of you and Bucky. I dance to them sometimes, by myself in my gilded room._

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

[Translated] Excerpt from _The Vienna Chronicle_, February 28th 1939 (p. 3) 

_… _ _also new to the music scene in Vienna this month is Alice Moser, who has been thrilling music hall audiences with what has been described as an 'otherworldly', 'enrapturing', 'sublime' voice. This paper looks forward to hearing more from the young songbird._

* * *

_April 4_ _th_ _, 1937_  
_Brooklyn_  
_Dear Alice,_

_Congratulations on yet another sold-out show. I'm just jealous I can't be there to hear you – though from the sounds of things I might be able to buy one of your records in Brooklyn in no time. I'm real proud of you, Alice. I knew the minute I first heard you sing that you'd be famous for it one day, and it's good to see that day now it's here._

_How are you doing though, really? I know how you sound when you're happy, and I can tell the difference between real happy and pretend when it comes to you. I'm not so sure I've heard a lot of the real from you lately. Have another night out on the town with Jil_ _í, that always seems to cheer you up. Or is she still running after that dark haired fella?_

_I lost the job with Mr Wells. Caught a fever, had to take a few days, and that was it for him. Don't worry about me though, and if you send me money I'll send it back. I've still got a few commissions from the paper, dad's army pension, and something else will crop up soon. We're on our way out of the Depression._

_I've enclosed a drawing of how I imagine your performances to look like – golden chandelier and all. Let me know if it's close._

_Yours,  
Steve_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My little brother threw up on me the first time I ever held him. I'm still not over it.


	9. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a snippet of a real historical article in this chapter. See if you can spot it (hint: the language is absolutely bananas).

"But before the straits of Scylla and Charybdis, where do Odysseus and his men pass through? Mr Neri?"

"The, uh, the island of the s-sirens," Finn lisped, after his head jerked up from where he'd been falling asleep on his open book.

"Thank you," replied Mrs Rosewood, their sophomore English teacher. She'd already dragged them through Shakespeare and _Ulysses_, and had chosen the _Odyssey _as her next method of torture. "Can anyone tell me what sirens are? Mr Rogers?"

Steve had been paying more attention, but he still had to glance back at the yellowing pages of his book for a moment before replying: "Um… half birds, half…" he cleared his throat, and at the desk beside him Alice hid her smile. The translated text read _virgins_. "… Women," he eventually said.

"And what do they do?"

Mrs Rosewood's eyes were still on Steve so he answered her again. "They, uh, sing to trick sailors into smashing their ships on the rocks, or drowning themselves. You've gotta put beeswax in your ears or get tied to the mast to be able to get past."

"Precisely!" Mrs Rosewood said with a rare smile. She turned to address the class. "The sirens are the lovely, dangerous seductresses of the legend, a representation of the temptations that can be the undoing of men. They represent evil."

Alice put up her hand, and Mrs Rosewood nodded her permission to speak. "Why are they evil?"

Mrs Rosewood shot her a quizzical look. "What do you mean?"

"Why are the sirens evil? Why are they different from the storms, and the cyclops, and the gods who slow down the journey?"

Mrs Rosewood smiled. "I see your confusion. In literature, you must ask yourself what each character or struggle _represents. _The storms represent the fickle winds of fate that blow through legends like the _Odyssey,_ the cyclops and his blindness represent the balance between truth and deception, and each of the gods come with a symbolism of their own. But the Sirens here are representative of those kinds of women who seek to bring righteous men to downfall – a warning to both men and women alike. Men are taught to be deaf to their seductive songs, and women must learn not to become like them. Do you see?"

Alice frowned, but it wouldn't be the first time she hadn't understood something in English class. "I guess so."

Behind her, a boy named Jack Callaghan whispered to his friend: "I dunno how seductive they can be, being half bird."

Mrs Rosewood didn't hear the whispered comment or the smothered laughter that followed it. "Great. Let's read the passage at the bottom of page 184, where the Sirens sing-" Alice flipped her page to the passage, and listened as Ms Rosewood read aloud:

"_Come this way, honored Odysseus, great glory of the Achaians, and__ stay your ship, so that you can listen here to our singing; for no one else has ever sailed past this place in his black ship until he has listened to the honey-sweet voice that issues from our lips; then goes on, well-pleased, knowing more than ever he did; for we know everything that the Argives and Trojans did and suffered in wide Troy through the gods' despite. Over all the generous earth we know everything that happens._"

They moved on soon after that, but Alice kept her book open to the same page for the rest of the class. Something about it intrigued her – she wondered what a siren song _sounded _like. Would a woman be able to resist it? Did the sailors fall in love with the singer, or the song? And why did Mrs Rosewood keep talking about _evil physical seductions _when, as far as Alice could tell, the only thing that the Sirens promised was knowledge?

After school, Steve tracked Alice down around the side of the school building, leaning against the brick wall and softly singing to herself. He approached quietly, so that she wouldn't notice him and stop singing.

She looked down at her entwined hands as she sang, her voice rolling out in a wordless, lilting melody. It sounded almost like some of the choir songs at church, save for a more haunting quality. Her voice rolled high and strange before sinking to an eerie depth. After the bustle and chatter of the school halls, the soft song undulating out here felt like being brought into another world.

After a few more moments Steve smiled to himself. "Trying to come up with a siren song?"

Alice's mouth snapped shut and she looked up at him, wide eyed. A moment later a grin lifted her lips. "Is it working? Are you going to throw yourself on the rocks to hear me better?" She gestured to the gravel between them.

Steve rolled his eyes at her. "I dunno if you're there yet."

Her grin only widened as he crunched across the gravel and leaned against the wall beside her. "Hey, you know what the Roman name for Odysseus is? I looked it up after class."

Steve shrugged. Despite what he'd said, he could still hear an echo of her song resounding in his ears – he always liked hearing her sing, and he liked the openness it brought to her face.

Alice grinned. "_Ulysses_."

He met her eyes. "You're joking."

"I'm not! In the Roman version of the legend, his name is Ulysses. We _definitely _have to keep it as our code word now."

Steve laughed and rubbed his jaw. "You know what, weird coincidence, I've also been reading Ulysses S Grant's memoirs this week."

Alice quirked a brow. "_Why_?"

"He used some interesting battle tactics in the civil war, and I wanted to read about them."

Alice smiled fondly at him. "Of course you did." There was a long pause as they both dug their toes into the gravel and squinted in the sunlight. "You know," she eventually said, "if they let girls into the army, I'd join with you." She'd known about Steve's longing to be a soldier like his father almost as known as she'd known him.

Steve didn't laugh at her, which made Alice so relieved she felt dizzy. He just looked at her seriously, weighting her words and the look in her eyes. "You'd be a good soldier," he said eventually. He looked away. "Probably better than me."

"Of the two of us, who has read Ulysses S Grant's battle tactics?" That made him smile and he met her eye. "You _want _this, and you want it because you want to help people. Don't give up on that."

He shrugged and half-smiled. "I dunno, it's not like we're going to have a war any time soon. Need to look at other jobs."

"You could try something to do with art?"

"I only draw as a hobby, Alice-"

"You could do it for money, too," she interrupted. He looked disbelieving, so she nodded across the road at an advertisement for baked beans on the side of a building. It had been well-drawn and well-colored, making the model's cheeks glow and the can look bright and appealing. Steve followed her gaze and laughed under his breath.

"Selling beans?"

"It's a start. Hell," Alice finished, spreading her hands wide. "You could end up drawing for _Buck Rogers _one day!"

"And you could end up with your own _Alice Moser Hour _on the radio, and perform for the president."

"Or sitting on a rock tempting sailors to drown themselves," she added thoughtfully. "It's difficult to choose."

That finally made Steve burst out laughing, and that was how Bucky found them a few moments later: doubled over against the side of the wall as their laughter echoed across the teacher's parking lot.

* * *

At the end of March the baseball major leagues started up again, and suddenly Steve and Bucky could talk of little else. They spoke about Dodgers players as if they knew them personally, and Bucky once again brought out the prized ball he'd caught at one of the games two years ago.

Last year Alice had tuned out their obsession with the game, but they'd grown closer since and it was all she could do not to tear her hair out now. She was used to Matthias listening to games on the radio, but he preferred to share his enthusiasm with his friends rather than his family (two of whom had no interest in the sport, and the other who was too young to do much more than roll a baseball across the floor of their apartment).

Finally, at one lunch where Alice sat between Steve and Bucky as they talked non stop about games and managers and statistics, she let out a sigh and asked what an _innings _was.

They both stopped dead and stared at her. "You don't know what an innings is?" Bucky asked, incredulous.

Alice shrugged. "I don't know any of the rules."

Steve's eyes widened. "Alice, have you ever seen a game of baseball?"

Sighing internally, Alice shook her head. Then Steve and Bucky exchanged a _look_, and her fate was sealed.

* * *

Excerpt from _'Baseball's Golden Age'_ by Murray Goldwyn (1982), p. 124:

_The name 'Dodgers' came from the longer nickname 'the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers' in 1895._

_The 1930s were not a good decade for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Despite vast local support and the affectionate nickname of 'Dem Bums' from noted cartoonist Willard Mullin, they did not achieve much real success. In 1934, the manager of rival team the Manhattan Giants joked "is Brooklyn still in the league?"_

* * *

After almost a month of the two boys making it their mission to teach Alice the ins and outs of baseball, the three of them scrounged enough money to buy tickets for a weekend game against the Yankees.

Alice had walked past Ebbets Field before, with its vaulting walls and its crowd of perpetually chatting old men out front, but she'd never been able to show her ticket and push through the turnstiles into the raucous, excited atmosphere within. She let Steve and Bucky's enthusiastic chatter wash over her as she cast her eyes over the rows and rows of brightly-colored fans in the stadium, over the broad green pitch and took in the smells of hot dogs and freshly cut grass. Bright music washed over the crowd, making the noise of a hundred conversations double in volume.

"I can see why people like this," she said to Bucky and Steve as they took their seats. The hotdog vendor walked past them and Alice's stomach growled, but she'd spent all her money on the ticket.

"There's no better place to be in the world!" Bucky announced with a sweeping gesture at the stadium. Steve laughed quietly beside him, and Alice opened her mouth to argue, but then the Brooklyn Dodgers walked out onto the pitch and the entire crowd went absolutely insane.

An hour later, after much cheering and excited talk from the boys, Alice announced that she was going to root for the Yankees.

Bucky and Steve tore their eyes away from the game for the first time with identical looks of outrage. Alice hid her smile behind a calm façade.

"You can't cheer for the _Yankees_," Steve said in a louder volume than she was used to from him. He said the name of the away team with the same disgust he reserved for spiders and the bad guys in the radio adventure stories.

"Why not?" Alice said with a curious tilt of her head. "I live in New York."

"You live in _Brooklyn_, Alice," he said, aghast. Bucky seemed speechless.

"I used to live in the Bronx, isn't that where they're from?"

"You just… you can't cheer for the Yankees."

Alice gestured at the scoreboard. "The Yankees are _winning_."

"You can't just cheer for a team because it's winning!" Bucky protested.

"Hm, no, the Yankees are my favorite now." It was all she could do not to burst out laughing at the horrified looks on Steve and Bucky's faces and their continued efforts to bring her to reason. She cheered for the Yankees whenever they scored a run (though not too loudly – she was very aware that she sat in the middle of a very enthusiastic pack of Dodgers supporters) and teased Bucky and Steve whenever they cheered.

But at the end of the game, when the Dodgers had been thoroughly beaten, Alice joined the boys and the rest of Ebbets Field in cheering the Dodgers players off the pitch.

After that game Alice more or less understood the rules of baseball, so she was able to join in Bucky and Steve's enthusiastic discussions. But rather than pledging her heart and soul to the Dodgers, to Bucky and Steve she pretended to root for teams from all over the place, because "I like their colors" or "one of their supporters was nice to me at the turnstiles".

Steve and Bucky remained fondly irritated.

* * *

At the end of June, Bucky finished his final year of middle school. None of them were all too worried about no longer being at the same school – Brooklyn Senior High was just a few blocks away, and they knew they'd still spend as much time together after school and on the weekends as they usually did.

The first week back proved that to be true. That weekend, a few days after Alice's fourteenth birthday, Bucky announced that he had something special up his sleeve.

On Saturday evening, while their parents thought they were all at home in bed, Alice, Steve, and Bucky walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and into the Lower East Side. Bucky's only instructions had been to dress up as nice as they possibly could, so Steve wore the only suit he owned (charcoal grey and a size too large – he'd only ever worn it to church before), and Alice wore a teal blue dress she'd been given for her birthday, had pinned up her hair, and put on a touch of blush and lipstick she'd 'borrowed' from her mother's dressing table. Bucky wore a dark suit and had slicked his hair back.

It was a busy night in the city, with shiny black cars driving up and down the streets and what seemed like every light ablaze. Steve and Alice asked Bucky over and over what he had planned – Alice suspected he was bringing them to a dance hall – but he refused to answer their questions.

Finally they came to a standstill on the pavement of Delancey street, in front of a darkened shop between a bank and a record store. Alice eyed the sign over the shop, which read _Ratners_, then peered through the windows to make out stacked wooden chairs and a covered countertop.

"You brought us to a closed deli," Steve said flatly, eyeing Bucky's reflection in the dark glass window.

Bucky's reflection grinned back at him. "It's actually a kosher dairy. And yep, it's closed."

Alice's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Bucky jerked his head. "Let's go 'round here."

Steve and Alice stepped closer together as they followed Bucky off the main street into the darker Norfolk street. Steve seemed inclined to keep a respectful distance, but something clattered at the end of the street and Alice pressed so close that her bare arm slid against his suit jacket. He wasn't sure whether she was seeking protection or offering it, but he didn't think he minded all that much.

A third of the way down the street, Bucky approached a dark door set into a brick wall and knocked five times. He turned to wink at Alice and Steve.

"What is this place?" Alice asked as she looked around at the darkened street and the unremarkable door he'd knocked.

"A surprise," he repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. He took in their apprehensive expressions. "You don't have to look so terrified," he added. "It's like you think I've brought you to be executed."

"Your surprises never end well," Steve said gloomily.

"That's not true!" Bucky protested. "What about that time-" he was interrupted by the door, which cracked open just far enough to reveal the face of a boy maybe a year or so older than themselves, peering out into the street suspiciously. Alice's eyes widened at the music which poured out onto the street from the partially-opened door – a cheerful, brassy noise with a man's low voice in accompaniment.

The boy who'd opened the door glanced up and down the street before finally looking at Bucky. "Hey, pal," he said in a murmur, then jerked his head at Steve and Alice. "Who're they?"

"Friends," Bucky said with a reassuring nod. "That offer still on the table?"

The boy eyed Alice and Steve for a moment longer before shrugging. "Just don't tell anyone I let you in, and don't cause any trouble." With that he creaked the door open a little further, letting the music ring out more clearly, and shot them an impatient look.

Bucky hastened in through the door, thanking his friend, and after a wary glance at each other Alice and Steve followed him. They found themselves at the bottom of a carpeted set of stairs lit by surprisingly fancy crystal electric lights. The boy who'd opened the door disappeared down a side passage without another word.

The music was louder here – it now sounded like a trumpet solo. Alice wondered that they hadn't heard it on the street. The sounds of conversation and laughter echoed down the stairs, with the higher melody of clinking glasses. The smoky air seemed hazy.

"Bucky," Alice said, one hand curled around the bottom of the wooden banister. "This is a speakeasy."

It was more a statement than a question, but the gleam in Bucky's eye erased any of her remaining doubts. Her mouth dropped open speechlessly and by her side Steve's head fell back, leaving him staring up at the ceiling with a long-suffering look on his face.

"Oh come on," Bucky said as he took a few slow steps up the carpeted staircase. The warm light gleamed in his dark hair. "Everyone knows they're going to end Prohibition soon anyway, it's not like the place is going to get raided. And Danny said we could come by whenever so long as we don't make a scene." He raised his eyebrows enticingly and drummed his fingers along the wooden banister.

Alice felt herself waver at the bottom of the stairs. The part of her that spoke in her mother's voice said _be safe, go home. _She knew Bucky too well to think that he could have thought through every possible consequence, and knew that if she were to get caught at a _speakeasy _of all places she'd never be allowed out with Steve and Bucky again.

But there was another part of her that made her take a deep breath of the smoky, perfumed air, that had her fingers twitching to the beat of the music rolling down the stairs and made her want to run her hands up the wooden banisters. Her cheeks warmed.

Alice turned to Steve to see him looking contemplatively up the stairs. His head tilted and he met her eyes.

"I dunno," he said to Bucky, though he didn't take his eyes off Alice. His words were hesitant, but she could see that he felt the same temptation she did – that part of him that sketched out forms and shapes in pencil wanted to see what waited at the top of the stairs.

"Don't you at least want to see what it's like?" Bucky prompted with a laugh in his voice. He knew he had them.

As one, Steve and Alice sighed and stepped onto the stairs. Bucky let out a low whoop of victory and led them upward.

Their footsteps made no noise on the red and gold-thread carpet up the stairs, so no one looked over when the three teenagers finally reached the room at the top, leaving them to stare around with open mouths.

They'd reached a long, low-ceilinged room absolutely bustling with people. Crystal chandeliers cast golden light over the finely-dressed people below, who laughed and chatted and sipped from frosted glasses as a band played somewhere up the back.

Alice didn't know where to look first: the dazzling lights pouring forth from all over the space, the fine wooden furniture and plush red lounges, the expensive dresses of the ladies or the immaculate suits of the men. She could hear the band but couldn't see them – the speakeasy was split into two levels, and the bar itself and the band must have been on the slightly higher one just out of sight. As Alice stared, a woman in a backless gown let out a bright peal of laughter, making her dark drink splash in her glass, before leaning in to plant a bright red kiss against her male companion's cheek. The room smelled like perfume and cigarettes and some earthy, tangy scent that Alice suspected belonged to the drinks the speakeasy patrons sipped from.

"Welcome to the back of Ratner's," Bucky said, a slight hint of surprise coloring his usually confident tone.

Alice swallowed. "What do we do?"

"I guess we find a seat," Bucky replied.

They stepped forth into the color and dazzle of the scene before them, instinctively huddling close together while also trying to appear older than they were. Alice sensed Steve straightening his posture beside her, and attempted to copy him. Her eyes slid over glinting drinks and flashing white teeth, and before she knew it she was sinking onto a red cushioned settee beside a ornamental table. Bucky and Steve sat around the table as well, their eyes round and their cheeks pink from the warmth in the bar.

"So," Bucky, once he was settled and had propped his arm against the wooden paneling on the wall. A portrait of a woman in a blue gown hung over his head, and a few feet away a fireplace crackled. "Bad surprise?"

"Definitely a _surprise_," Alice said as two men walked past arm in arm. Bucky laughed at the look on her face and she glanced back at him. "But not bad. Steve?"

Steve hadn't said a single word since they entered the room, so when Alice turned to him she was surprised to see him looking at her with a strange look on his face. It quickly cleared, and he turned to Bucky. "Not bad," he agreed. The light from the chandeliers made his hair glow like spun gold, and with his pretend-adult posture it almost appeared as if he fit his suit. "How'd you find out about this place?"

"I met Danny in the _actual _Ratner's, he's a server during the day. Ma likes their cheese blintzes. Once we were friends, Danny told me about his other job at night, and offered to let me in some time." He gestured around. "I thought it might be a nice birthday present."

"Well you were right," Alice said with a smile. The band changed songs into something a little more upbeat, which made a few women in the bar crowd clap their hands in delight. Alice had read about speakeasies in the paper, had even heard the preacher at church decry their _immorality and sin. _But just like the sirens in the Odyssey, Alice just couldn't see evil here. "Thank you."

"That's just my half of the present though," Bucky said. "Go on, Steve!"

Alice stopped gawking at the rich room and turned to Steve, who shot an exasperated look at Bucky before turning to her. "Bucky didn't tell me what he was planning," he explained, "but he said you'd need this." He reached into his trousers pocket and pulled up a folded wad of cash – a very thin wad to be sure, but more money than Alice had been able to put together in a long time.

"Steve-"

He shook his head at her hesitant tone and handed the money over. "Nope, it's yours. I wouldn't have been able to save this money in the first place if it wasn't for you." She and Bucky both frowned, and Steve took a breath. "You told me I oughta' try getting paid to draw things, so I sent a few letters around to the papers and to advertisement agencies, and one of them wrote back asking me to draw some sketches of machine parts for a flyer. It's not much, but it means I get a few dollars here and there. I didn't tell 'em how old I am though," he finished wryly.

Alice almost dropped the money out of excitement. "_Steve_," she exclaimed, "that's amazing! Congratulations!" She darted out of her seat to throw her arms around him, and a second later Bucky leaned over to pat an overwhelmed-looking Steve on the back as well.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Bucky asked.

Steve shrugged, pink-cheeked. "Wasn't sure if anything would happen, and then I didn't see much reason to get excited over machine parts. Just wanted to reassure you I didn't steal the money or anything."

"That's the last thing I'd accuse you of," Alice laughed. "And I demand that you show us this machine parts flyer as soon as possible."

"Seconded," Bucky said formally.

Steve's embarrassment gave way to laughter, and he finally gestured to the money in Alice's hand. "So go on Bucky, explain why I needed to give Alice money for her birthday."

Bucky's smile widened into a wicked grin. "Shouldn't think I needed to explain, but alright." He gestured once more around the room, and then to the partial view they had of the dark wood bar with its well-dressed bartenders. "We're in a speakeasy. We'd better buy a drink."

Steve once more cast a long-suffering look at the ceiling, but Alice just grinned back at Bucky. She'd suspected that's what the money was for. "And I suppose I have to buy drinks for you two as well?" She put on an affronted expression. "With my own birthday money?"

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Well I figure you look the oldest out of the three of us, so it's probably best if you try."

Alice raised an eyebrow. Bucky was _actually _the oldest, but he still very much looked like a _boy_; his face was rounded and youthful, and his suit didn't fit him much better than Steve's did, though he had the confidence to pull it off. Steve… well. Steve always looked a few years younger than he actually was. Alice had not really considered her own looks, but she supposed Bucky was right – she'd lost her baby weight over the last few years, either from growing up or from missing a meal here and there thanks to the Depression, and people always assumed she was older than she was when she wasn't in her school uniform. Her mom always said it was because Alice always looked so serious.

"Alice," Steve said, drawing her out of her consideration. His brow was creased in concern. "You don't have to, we can just sit here. If you don't want to-"

"I want to," she said, smiling to soften the interruption. The lights, the music, the haze of smoke in the air… it made her want to be a part of this world, even for a few moments. She might not have gotten in trouble for rule-breaking in many years now, but that did not mean she never broke a rule. It just meant she was good at never getting caught.

Steve, also no stranger to rule-breaking but not as good at the not-getting-caught, cracked a smile. "Alright then."

Bucky saluted Alice. "Good luck, soldier."

With a laugh, Alice got to her feet and strode across the speakeasy toward the bar. People made way for her without giving her a second glance, and she climbed the short flight of stairs to the second level with a concealed smile. She'd always been good at blending in, and it appeared the speakeasy was no different.

The bar was long and well-populated, so Alice found a clear spot and rested her folded hands on the dark wood with an expectant air. She stood tall, with straight shoulders, and forced herself to exude confidence despite not totally feeling it. She watched the adults at the bar around her laugh and talk and clink their drinks together. A few glanced her way and smiled, and with a polite smile in return she broke eye contact. The last thing she needed was some man thinking she was there in search of a partner.

Her eyes drifted to the back of the room, where she finally spotted the band. There were five of them – drums, piano, trumpet, trombone, and a vocalist; all men. They wore sharp tuxedos and flashed smiles at their delighted audience as they played their way through an upbeat jazz number, tapping their toes and adding twists and flairs to the song that made Alice smile. She watched as the singer set one hand against his microphone stand and flung the other out as he sang the final line about his love for the uptown train line. The music reminded her of Matthias, and she could easily see him in a place like this; charming the room with his sure voice and his steady smile.

"What'll you have, darlin'?"

Alice very determinedly did not flinch at the voice across from her, but instead turned back with a distracted half-smile to meet the unoccupied bartender's eyes. He was balding, with a pleasant smile and a dark grey vest and purple tie. He cocked an eyebrow at her, though not impatiently.

Alice cleared her throat. "Three Paris Sidecars," she said, because she'd heard someone else at the bar order that and the drinks menu was utter gibberish to her.

"Sure thing. That'll be a dollar fifty."

Struggling not to let her eyes widen at the price (_how can people _afford _to be addicted to this stuff? _she wondered), Alice handed over the money and pocketed the rest. She watched curiously as the bartender whirled away, fetched three shallow, long-stemmed glasses and began fetching bottles and small containers and a large metal canister.

He poured various liquids – _cognac_, Alice read on one of the bottles – into the canister without seemingly needing to measure them, added ice and a squeeze of lemon, then closed up the canister and began shaking it. He noticed Alice watching and flipped it behind his shoulder once or twice, eyes glinting. Her abject curiosity turned into bemusement when he dusted the rim of each of the glasses with what looked like pure sugar and then filled them nearly to the brim with the orange-yellow concoction from the canister. He set the glasses on a tray and slid it over.

"_Et voilà, mademoiselle._"

Alice carefully picked up the tray, making sure she was balanced before she met the bartender's eye again. "_Merci_," she smiled.

With that, Alice turned and made her way triumphantly back through the packed speakeasy. She was no longer surprised at the place being so full despite Prohibition – this was _fun._

She came back to the boys' table to see them looking around the room.

"Look, that's Jean Early," Bucky said to Steve, his eyes glinting as he nodded at a red-lipped, fashionable looking lady in a mink coat across the room. But as he kept looking around, his features fell in disappointment. "We must've got here on a slow night, this place is supposed to be filled with actresses."

"Well we got a future singer right here," Steve said as he spotted Alice weaving their way back through the crowd toward them.

She grinned at them both and set down the tray with a flourish she'd copied from the bartender. "Here you are, sirs!" she dropped down onto her settee. "I have no real idea what these are."

Bucky eyed the orange, sugar-crusted drinks suspiciously. "You got _fancy _drinks."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Well excuse me, next time you can try. That menu made no sense, it was all things like _brut _and _Swedish Punch _and _Silver Fizz. _If it's a code, I couldn't make it out. These," she gestured to the waiting drinks as a drop of condensation rolled down the side of one of them. "Are _Paris Sidecars._"

"I'm game," Steve said. He reached out and took one of the drinks with slender fingers. Alice and Bucky reached in to pick up the remainders, and they glanced at each other. Steve raised his glass. "To Alice!"

"To Alice!" Bucky echoed, clinking his glass to Steve's. The orange liquid sloshed slightly.

Alice clinked her glass to theirs. "To orange, fancy drinks!"

"Bottoms up," Bucky finished, and as one they brought their cocktail glasses to their lips with a laugh.

Alice had seen alcohol before – New York had never really stopped drinking, even in the height of Prohibition. But she was used to seeing a bottle in a brown paper bag, or a sneaky flask, or the bottle of rubbing alcohol in her mom's cabinet. But as she took her first sip of the Paris Sidecar she realized that this was a drink made to be _enjoyed. _It exploded in her mouth with orange and lemon bursts, followed by the sweetness of the sugar, and when she swallowed she tasted a strong, heavy aftertaste that rushed right to her head.

Alice spluttered despite herself at the unfamiliar taste, and looked up with round eyes at Bucky and Steve to see similar expressions of surprise on their faces. Steve's ears had gone red.

After a moment of consideration, Bucky raised his glass in another toast. "Well, here's to fancy orange drinks."

Alice laughed as she took her next sip and the drink went up her nose, only making her laugh harder. Music floated in the air, she felt warm, and when she looked up she saw sugar on the tip of Steve's nose.

She thought then that she'd never had such a good birthday present.

* * *

Excerpt from the _Brooklyn_ _ Daily Eagle _ , November 27 1932:

_Before we had been on the warpath for copy very long we learned one thing we thought you'd like to know, and hasten to tell you. Here goes!_

_The speakeasy, which was here in one form or another long before rational prohibition made it profitable and fashionable, is here to stay, and you can take it or leave it!_

_… _ _Then there is a large class which has taken to drinking because it's "smart" – a class composed largely of giggly (but frightfully thirsty) young women and bare-headed young men._

_… They'd rather sit at the bar of some blind-pig and toss away helping after helping of cocktails, gin-rickeys or what'll you have. For them, as for the establishments they patronize, repeal [of Prohibition] doesn't mean a thing. For them we predict the locked door and the tiny peep-hole will be retained even if an unimaginative legalism has been conferred upon their functions._

* * *

Alice, Steve, and Bucky were able to consume two more rounds (one a small glass of port, the next a heavy, dark cocktail called a _Jamaica Rum Daisy_) before one of the speakeasy regulars noticed the laughing trio in the corner.

A shadow fell over them and they looked up to see a tall, tuxedoed man with a genial smile looking down at them.

"Hello… sir," Alice said carefully, fighting off the slight slur the drinks had given her. Bucky and Steve sat up straight and put on serious expressions.

The tall man cocked an eyebrow at them. "Now how old might you three be?"

"I'm nineteen," Alice enunciated, arching her own eyebrow back at him.

The man smiled. "I might have believed you, miss, if it weren't for the fact that your friend there couldn't be older than twelve."

Steve bristled. "I'm _fourteen_," he said indignantly.

Alice sighed and Bucky put a hand to his face.

The tall man laughed, but not unkindly. "I think you've had your fun, kids," he said. "It's time to head home."

He'd drawn the attention of a few more customers, and soon there was a small crowd looking at the three young people sitting around the small table. Alice felt disappointment rise in her chest. She'd been having _fun_, and now they'd been found out.

The look must have shown on her face and on Steve and Bucky's because the tall man laughed. "Come back in a few more years, kids." Then in a louder voice: "They can't shut this place down!"

To Alice's surprise the whole place let out a cheer. In the next moment she was being ushered out of her seat, and then she was hurrying, red-cheeked, through the crowd of laughing, cheering speakeasy patrons until she thundered down the stairs behind Steve and Bucky.

They spilled out onto the street, gasping at the cooler air, and met each other's eyes.

After a few moments of sudden, shocking silence, Bucky burst out laughing. Alice and Steve were quick to join him, their skin flushed and their eyes just slightly unfocused.

Bucky slung one arm over Steve's shoulder, then slung the other over Alice's and pulled them both in close. Alice laughed at the unbalanced sensation and closed her eyes at the feeling of warmth and closeness and laughing with her friends.

Bucky squeezed them both. "Let's go home."

They ran back home under the street lights of the Lower East Side and then over the Brooklyn Bridge, while the stars shone on the water below.

* * *

Excerpt from '_Captain America: The Man With A Plan'_ (1978) by E. M. Parton:

_The Captain was well worthy of becoming a national icon, for surely there could not be found another man so determined to uphold the laws and constitution of the United States of America, so pure of deed and intention. Indeed, it quickly became circulated on his USO circuit that the man had never broken a single U.S. law.  
For this, and for his wartime efforts, Captain America came to be known as the embodiment of freedom._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This author does not condone underage drinking! 'The Back of Ratners' was a real speakeasy, and I believe there's still a bar there in the speakeasy theme. If I've got any New York readers, please go and have a drink on me (but not if you're underage).


	10. Letters Across the Ocean (5)

**Eunjin Jang: ** ** _Life is bearable when you have someone to write, and someone who writes you back. Even if it's just one person._ **

* * *

_June 26__th__, 1937_  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,

_Well, as you'll see from the enclosed review clipping, they've given me a name. Apparently plain old 'Alice Moser' isn't good enough, so from now on I'll be known as 'Die Sirene'. Can you guess the translation?_

_I'm not sure whose idea it was – my uncle, the production company, or some eager journalist, and honestly I'm not sure whether I'm flattered or not. I'm sure they mean it as a compliment, but I seem to remember mean old Mrs Rosewood describing the Sirens as the 'embodiment of evil'. Well. I hope Homer won't feel too put out by my borrowing the name._

_I've been auditioning for operas at my uncle's request. It's not my favorite kind of music, but I do love the stories and the songs are difficult enough to make me work for it. There's certainly no room for jazz singers in Austria right now. For now I'm on the concert scene and recording songs. I've even covered some songs in English, which is a nice change._

_After my last concert I had people asking for my autograph. __My autograph_, _Steve! I still remember when we came up with our autographs in middle school. Mine's not nearly grand enough._

_I have more news, which secretly makes me much happier than my renaming: Jil_ _í is getting married! Turns out that 'dark haired fella' as you always refer to him has been in love with her for months, and she's been seeing him secretly. His name is Franz Kreisky, and after meeting him properly a few times I think they're going to be very happy together. He doesn't quite have her sharp mind, but he's warm and open and good to her._

_I don't mind their secrecy – _ _Jil_ _í told me as soon as she knew she was serious about him, and neither of them are all that popular in society at the moment (what with Franz being Jewish). I'm sneaking out to join them at the swing club this evening, so I have to go!_

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

** _~ They name you for a monster. ~_ **

* * *

_June 30__th__, 1937_  
Brooklyn  
Dear Ms Celebrity,

_A fan of yours from all the way across the Atlantic is humbly requesting a signed picture. I'd be extra humbled if you could convince my bonehead friend to just enjoy a trip to the dance hall for once instead of moping around, neglecting his date, or getting in fights with drunk idiots. But alas, miracles are out of reach for even for the great singers of Europe._

_Humble, admiring regards,  
Bucky_

_PS: Saw Tom on the weekend. He's doing real well at school, reckons he's got three girlfriends. I told him that in my experience, it's not worth the effort._

* * *

_July 4__th__, 1937_  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,

_Happy Birthday! This will reach you after your birthday, but I hope you had a great time – I've been thinking about you all day. I can't believe this is your second birthday that I've missed – last time we were together, we were seventeen._

_So what did you do on your birthday? Or rather, what did Bucky make you do?_

_I've included my present, a set of Viennese brushes – I'm told they're the very best in the country. I know you don't paint as much as you draw, but you mentioned a few months ago that you'd like to try it out more. Now you have to!_

_Sorry to bring this up in your birthday letter, but I wanted to ask – have you read Mein Kampf, Steve? I'm sure there must be English translations._

_I ask because I finally read it. I can barely get through a conversation here nowadays without someone talking about Adolf Hitler, so I wanted to hear what he had to say to understand him better._

_It's a terrifying book. The more I read, the more scared I got. I'd say that the _ _F__ü__hrer is crazy, but in doing that I believe I'm putting too much faith in sanity; sane men do and say terrible things every day. I am very afraid of Herr Hitler's sanity._

_I remember my mother laughing at him when he first appeared in the news. I took that as my attitude – never truly believing what he said, laughing at his extravagances and wild assertions._

_I think it's time for me to stop laughing, and treat him seriously. He is a serious man._

_Sorry, sorry. Ignore me, enjoy your birthday!_

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

[Translated] Poster, headline: _See THE SIREN as Floria Tosca in Puccini's "Tosca"__ this Thursday at the Vienna State Opera, one night only! (Image: a stylized illustration of Alice Moser as Tosca, holding a candle as she stands over the body of the villainous Scarpia)_

* * *

_October 21__st__, 1937_  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,

_Congratulations on getting the part! I might not know a lot about opera, but even if it is 'just a student opera' you got the main part and they clearly thought it was good enough to show at the State Opera for a night! I couldn't be prouder. Die Sirene will have to make way for Tosca, for now._

_I did some reading on the opera itself, and it ain't exactly a happy story what with everybody dying and your character leaping off a building at the end, but I suppose that's opera for you. I know you said you're nervous, but I've never heard a voice stronger than yours, and you're stubborn enough to never make a single mistake. Though I've got no idea how you remember all the lines, especially in Italian. Send the reviews when you get them (but please translate them, my German's still nowhere near good enough)._

_You mentioned in your last letter that you'd like to play Brünnhilde from Wagner's 'Die Walküre' one day. I'll admit that I'd never heard of it, but I did some reading on it too and apparently it's one of the hardest roles to play ever and most sopranos can never get there. _

_I look forward to seeing you on stage as Brünnhilde one day._

_Pass on my congratulations to Jil_ _í and Franz at their wedding tomorrow (and I hope your uncle doesn't notice you leaving the house)._

_Bucky's sisters are throwing a Halloween party soon, and they're insisting on making me a costume. I've got to go over there to try it on now, but I'll write again soon._

_Yours,  
Steve_

_PS: The drawing on the back is my costume. I only had a pencil so you'll have to imagine the vibrant shade of orange._

* * *

_December 27__th__, 1937  
__Paris_  
Dear Steve,

_Paris is still freezing as all hell, but Christmas was nice. Thanks for your letter (the postcards from home were very welcome), and the drawing of Tom. He's getting so big!_

_I'm going to keep this letter brief, because you asked me to translate that last review and I'm very embarrassed about it. Here goes:_

_"_ _The Siren's concert (this being her first since the closing night of her student performance as Tosca in the opera of the same name__), is one of those performances that you know, the moment you hear it, you will never forget._

_The Siren (Alice Moser) walks out onto the stage; a hearty, fine-featured girl of nineteen, in a dazzling gold gown and her eyes almost wide in the bright lights of the concert hall. She is pretty, but not the kind of stunning beauty that stops one in his tracks in the street._

_But then the music begins, and she opens her mouth to sing._

_Words cannot do justice. The Siren is enthralling. You feel as if she's giving you a blessing, and she drowns you in it. When the song is over, you realize you've fallen in love and had your heart broken all at once."_

\- _Alice_

* * *

_January 10__th__, 1938_  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,

_So. I wrote a song. I've been writing it for a while, on and off while my uncle's been away or in my off hours at the Academy. It's called _Wertvolle Wörter, _which means 'precious words', and before I showed it to my uncle I made sure it was just high-brow enough to be good enough for the elites here – I mean because I didn't take my inspiration from the music I've been singing here at all._

_It's a love song, sort of, and when I wrote it I had home in mind. The jazz and blues on the radio back in Brooklyn, the clubs Matthias played in, the songs I used to sing along to. It's a little richer than anything else I've sung here, more playful. I've written a German and an English version, but the English version will remain a secret (I've attached the lyrics to the back of this letter)._

_I want to explain what this song means to me. It means my mom and Matthias, it means the distant memories of my father, it means my brother. It means Bucky. It means you. This song is about cherishing the words I had with you all, the words I hold in my memory like buried gems. It means the words I hold back every day, even when I want to scream them. It means the words I write to you every week, and the ones I get in return. This song means _ _home._

_It's a happy song, mostly, with soft lulls of melancholy that rise up to soaring notes – my favorite kind of range. It's a joy to perform._

_My uncle liked it when I finally sang it to him, and now we're working with the production company. Though he just told me yesterday that he's going to be credited for writing and producing it. He says people don't like to listen to songs by women, so this is the better marketing choice. I'll admit I'm frustrated, but he's probably not wrong. Besides, I just want to sing it._

_My uncle thinks the song might hit international charts, so I'm hopeful you might be able to hear it. Keep your ear to the ground (or to the radio, as it were)._

_I hope the winter's treating you well – keep warm and try to eat as well as you can. And I hope the new illustration job is going well!_

_Yours,  
Alice._

* * *

_February 12__th__, 1938_  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,

_Bucky broke up with Dot yesterday. It was ugly. She didn't slap him, but she did cry an awful lot - and though he'll say he didn't, Bucky shed a few tears too. We went out to a dance hall so he could drown his sorrows, and he cheered up in no time once he'd danced a dame or two around the room. Highly surprisingly I did not end up dancing, though I did have a Parisian Side Car (for old times sake) and got laughed at by a whole gang of ladies._

_By the way, Wertvolle Wörter's been on the radio twice this week! Hardly anyone who listens to it in Brooklyn knows it's you, what with you being called the Siren now, but I've heard nothing but positive reviews. As for me, I love it – I knew I would, so you might call me biased, but I really mean it. I might not understand it, but it's the first time I've heard your voice in a long time and that hit me in a way I didn't expect. Brings me back to those cold mornings in church (though this time the song's much better)._

_But now for the main part of your last letter. I didn't realize things were getting so bad in Austria. I didn't realize things were so bad for Jil_ _í and Franz, and I'm sorry they're not accepting the help from you that you want to give – and that there are so many others like them in Austria in a bad spot. As for Austria, do you really think Germany will try to take over? That seems crazy, even for them._

_I think I'm in the same boat as you – if this were our old middle school classroom we'd know what to do. You'd know how to push and pull in just the right way to make sure the right thing is done. But you're right – this is about entire countries now. You shouldn't have to feel helpless though – hell, reading those books about German politics like you've been doing is a big step toward making a difference._

_You asked what I'd do, but I dunno if what I'd do is the right move here. You know me, I'd probably punch someone in the face and then get myself beaten up. I'm _ _really _ _not advocating that here though – please don't punch anyone in the face. Stay safe._

_Though even as I wrote that… I know you and I have never been able to just 'stay safe' when we see a situation turning south. I don't have all the answers, but I'd say… protect who you can. And take every opportunity to do the right thing. But not at the cost of your safety._

_Please. For me._

_Yours,  
Steve._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't forget to comment if you're reading and enjoying ❤
> 
> Edit: Many, many thanks to beckmessering for their help in all things opera and allowing me to get this as accurate as possible!


	11. Chapter Six

**Nietzsche: ** ** _In revenge and in love, woman is more barbaric than man._ **

* * *

The remainder of Steve and Alice's time at Brooklyn Junior High passed in relative peace. Alice ended up top of their math and French classes, but Steve bested her in art and history – an equal end to their three years of competition. Still, neither of them admitted the competition out loud.

That year, Alice got hired for her first singing gig. It was only a ladies luncheon in Flatbush, sure, and she was pretty sure the lady who'd asked her to sing for an hour for a few pennies had been prompted by her mom, but it was _something. _She got a few more small offers like that throughout the year – dinner parties, social functions, even once as a guest singer with her stepfather's band at a dance hall. Bucky and Steve snuck into the venue to cheer her on.

For Bucky's birthday in March, the three of them went to see the newest film that had come out: _King Kong. _Steve spent the next day drawing creatures climbing up New York buildings, and Bucky started slicking his hair back like Robert Armstrong. The papers proclaimed the mysterious burning of the German Reichstag, then the first concentration camp opened in Germany. Alice and Steve walked together to school in the mornings past headlines about the Chancellor of Germany gaining dictatorial powers. In the evenings over steaming cups of tea Alice's mom talked about the tumult, and Alice tried to understand.

That May, on their way to their final exams, Alice and Steve walked past a paper stand displaying pictures of a crowd of uniformed people standing around a pile of burning books, their right arms raised in an odd kind of salute. The headline explained that students in Berlin had gathered and burned 'un-German books'.

For a few moments Steve and Alice stood in silence in the bright spring weather, eyeing the photograph.

Alice reached out to touch the black and white photograph of burning books. The paper seller narrowed his eyes at her from a distance. "Well that's one way of getting noticed."

Steve put his hands in his pockets. "Are you alright? I know this is… you grew up near there."

Alice shrugged. "I'm not happy about it. But New York is my home, and we're not burning books. Yet," she added with a small smirk. "This is just men in power… posturing. It'll settle down soon." She drew her fingers away from the burning books and the two of them continued on through the sunshine.

In June Steve and Alice graduated from Brooklyn Junior High, spent the summer listening to the radio and taking trips down to Coney Island beach with Bucky, and in September ended up a few blocks away from their old school at Brooklyn Senior High.

Many of their other friends had dropped out after middle school to start work. The Depression was still hitting hard. Alice's mom and stepdad wouldn't hear of her leaving school, though, and Steve's mom assured him she was perfectly able to keep them both fed and warm. There wasn't even much work available anyway, especially not for a foreign girl and a perpetually sick trouble magnet.

Bucky welcomed them at the gates of Brooklyn Senior High with open arms and a grin, as if he owned the place.

"They let you two in here?" he called when they approached.

Steve rolled his eyes and said "Apparently the place went downhill after you showed up," and Bucky crowed with laughter.

Alice smiled at them, then turned her eyes to the imposing building before her. It looked much like their middle school: a large, square, grey-bricked building with a flagpole and dusty windows. Clouds loomed overhead, threatening rain. The building looked familiar, but the students walking through the gates and gathering in groups like flocking birds were _taller. _Alice was neither short nor tall, but back at Brooklyn Junior High she'd felt taller, older. Here she felt _tiny. _It reminded her of that first terrifying day at middle school. She remembered being bounced off the corridor walls like a loose ping pong ball and sighed at the thought of undergoing that again.

But today didn't feel terrifying. She wasn't alone, she had a bickering Steve and Bucky by her side, and she recognized other students milling in the courtyard. She knew the neighborhood – had a map of its streets living inside her head. The smells of car fumes, trash on the breeze, and the faint tang of cooking bread from the bakery across the street were familiar. This morning, her mom and Matthias had kissed her on the head as if it was any other normal day of school.

She followed Steve and Bucky into the schoolyard and hitched her book strap over her shoulder (the old blue textbook with the hole cut out of the center of it banged against her ribs).

"Hey Alice!" came a call. She turned to see Edith Brodeur, her first friend in Brooklyn, waving from a group of sophomores a few yards away. "Come do your voice trick!"

Alice nodded to Steve and Bucky, went over to Edith and her new friends and demonstrated her trick of perfect mimicry – imitating one of their voices and making them all laugh uproariously. Edith smiled, pink cheeked, and out of the corner of her eye Alice spotted Steve squaring up to tell off a jerk yanking on girls' book straps.

Ah, yes. High school wasn't different at all. It felt like coming home.

Steve thrived in the high school's art and history classes, and excelled expectations in all the others – he'd always had a logical mind, good for solving problems. Bucky remained the sportsman out of the three of them, and Alice and Steve found themselves getting picked out for torment less because of their proximity to him. Brooklyn Senior High had more language classes, which Alice gravitated towards, and a school choir which she joined on the first day. Her math teacher moved her up a grade.

After a few weeks to adjust to the new school, Alice joined the debating club after a recommendation from her new homeroom teacher. At first she didn't understand; they were just supposed to… argue with each other?

And then all of a sudden, she found herself loving it. She liked the challenge of taking on an opinion she didn't agree with and arguing for it wholeheartedly. Her teammates were hardworking and refreshingly smart, and didn't make fun of her accent. At their first competition her hands shook at the prospect of standing up in front of a crowd and _speaking_ instead of singing, but her voice stayed strong.

Later in the year, Steve caved in to Alice's pressure and joined the club as well. _It'll be good practice for using your words instead of your fists, _she said, and though he gave her a sour look he did as she said. He usually did.

Alice also joined the typewriting class on Wednesday afternoons. It was mostly girls interested in going to secretary school, which Alice wasn't sure about, but Edith had convinced her to join (Edith had the fastest fingers out of all of them). It was the first time she'd ever touched a typewriter before – the large, clunky machine felt like a mystery at first, but after a few weeks she knew the heavy press of the keys and the slick slide of the carriage return. It reminded her of the plinky piano at church, which she'd been learning on and off when the choir conductor was available.

In October, the news came that Germany had left the League of Nations. Alice was unimpressed, but school was getting busy, and it didn't mean much in her eyes. Other countries had left before.

She was more unimpressed by the fact that she now had to wear a brassiere, an awful constricting thing that her mom assured her she would get used to. Plucking at her sides and wincing when she bent over, Alice wasn't convinced.

* * *

Highschool became a comfortable rhythm, and though Alice was once again the smallest and youngest, she fit in. There were always jerks, and always Steve fighting someone, but she was used to that by now. She and Steve kept up their nighttime morse code correspondence, trying out new codes to thwart their non-existent eavesdroppers.

Once morning Alice was navigating the busy school corridor between classes, dodging burly jocks and towering senior girls, when she heard a bright voice.

"_Salut, _Alice!" Edith Brodeur exclaimed as she drew level with Alice. Her dark hair rested in tight curls like Shirley Temple. "_Quoi de neuf_?" [_What's up?_]

They had to part for a moment to make way for a gaggle of freshmen, but when they drew back together Alice smiled at her friend. "_Pas tant que ça_," [_Not much,_] she replied. But as they passed the library, she noticed that despite Edith's bright tone there was a furrow in her brow as she looked at Alice. "Is something wrong?"

Edith tucked a dark curl behind her ear as she looked around. "I want to ask you something." With that, she took Alice's arm and led her into the nearest girl's bathroom.

As Edith checked to make sure the stalls were unoccupied, Alice set her book strap on the bathroom counter with a frown. "Edith, what's the matter? Is it your family?" For a moment she thought this might have had something to do with Bucky – she'd already had a few girls come to her to ask after the charming dark-haired high school boy, and had caught Edith casting an admiring eye his way once or twice, but this wasn't Edith's _boy _face. This was serious.

Edith finally turned to look at Alice. Her eyes flicked over Alice's face and then her arms and uniform as if searching for something. "I just wanted to ask… are you…" she shifted slightly, her face pained. "Are you alright?"

Alice blinked. "Yes?" The word echoed in the tile bathroom.

Edith closed the distance between them and put her hands on Alice's arms. "You can be honest with me, _mon amie_." Her brow was furrowed and her dark eyes so earnest and entreating that Alice took a moment to make sure nothing had happened to her that could warrant this. But she'd had a relatively normal few months since the summer break – her brother Tom had been sick, but that was weeks ago, and the only other questionable thing she'd done had been sneaking up onto the tenement roof at night to sing and watch the stars.

But none of that explained the almost tearful look in Edith's eyes. Alice shook her head. "Edith, I promise you I'm not hiding anything. What on earth is wrong?"

A crinkle of confusion appeared in Edith's brow. "I… I had heard that your… that you might have been hurt."

"How?"

Edith took a half step back, her brow furrowing further. "I heard that you were hurt by your stepfather."

Alice always had a ball of cool, hard, calm resting in the pit of her stomach, keeping her steady when she sang or carried out her schemes. But at Edith's words the ball seemed to dissolve like dry ice, freezing her insides and catching her breath.

Edith took in the look on Alice's face and her eyes widened.

One.

Two.

Three.

When Alice was sure her voice wouldn't shake, she took a long breath through her nose and then carefully straightened out her blouse, looking down. "Where did you hear that?" she asked.

Edith swallowed. She was still confused, but she felt a prickle on the back of her neck as if sensing an oncoming storm. "I heard it from Mary Beth, but she said she heard it yesterday at lunch from Ed Miller."

Ed Miller. The same Ed Miller who'd just started going to the same church as Alice and Steve. The same Ed Miller whose eyes had flashed when Alice said _no, thank you, I don't want to go to the soda fountain with you_. The same Ed Miller who had seen Matthias meet Alice, Tom, and her Mom a block away from the church and walk them home. The same Ed Miller whose dark eyes Alice had noted, and stored away in her memory.

The cold mist billowing within Alice condensed again, forming hard and sharp.

"Oh," she said. She picked up her book strap with cold fingers and walked out of the bathroom.

* * *

"Steve!"

Steve's head jerked up from where he stood alone in the lunch line, dwarfed by two baseball players on either side of him. The growth spurt his mom kept promising was still yet to occur.

"Steve!" Bucky's voice, but Steve couldn't see him yet. The cafeteria was packed, the collective noise bouncing off the ceilings and filling the air like a physical presence.

"Steve!" Bucky finally squeezed through a knot of freshmen and ran up to Steve. His normally well-combed hair was mussed and his eyes were wide. "Steve, you gotta come right away – Alice is _mad _and I just know she's gonna do something crazy."

"What?"

But Bucky had already seized his arm and dragged him out of line. Bucky didn't usually manhandle him – knew Steve would probably punch him for it – so it must be serious. Steve fell into step beside him.

"Where is she?"

"I dunno, that's what we've got to figure out," Bucky said. They swept out of the busy lunchroom. "Her friend Edith came and warned me, said she thinks Alice is going to do something bad."

"What? Why?" Steve was breathless as he speed-walked. His shoes squeaked on the floor.

"Apparently Ed Miller's been going around telling anyone who'll listen that Alice's stepfather is a you-know-what, that he kidnapped Alice's mom and that he does awful things to Alice in their house."

Steve saw red. "_What_?"

"I know, I know, but Alice knows now and I'm worried she might actually murder him. Poison him, or drop a piano on his head, or…"

Bucky continued to theorize, more panicked than he'd been in a long time, as they hunted the halls for Alice. For Bucky, Steve was a frustrating but predictable menace – he'd see something he didn't like, and he'd hit it, then get himself hit. Alice on the other hand was _trouble. _She didn't strike blindly; she plotted and planned and wreaked ruthless revenge. It was hard to figure out what she would do until it was done. She was better than Steve at not getting caught, but now, when she was no doubt furious… he was sure whatever she did would lead straight back to her.

He was so preoccupied with thoughts of Alice that he didn't realize Steve had gone very, very quiet.

They found her in Ed Miller's abandoned homeroom.

She'd heard oncoming footsteps and gone to the front of the class, as if leaving something on the teacher's desk, but when the door opened to reveal a breathless Steve and Bucky her face clouded over again and she went back to what she'd been doing: rifling through the coat rack. The room was dark and quiet, making the sound of her breathing very loud.

"Alice," Bucky said tersely.

She ignored him, her fingers riffling through coats until she found the one with the name _Ed Miller _stencilled on the inside of the collar. Her eyes gleamed and she reached into her skirt pocket.

"_Alice_," Bucky repeated. "What are you doing?"

"None of your business." She pulled an envelope out of her pocket with gentle fingers and slid it into Ed's right hand pocket.

"What's that?" Bucky and Steve strode down the empty desks towards her.

"A spider."

"A _spider_?" Bucky's eyes bugged and he raced the rest of the length of the classroom to pull her away from the coat. "Where did you get a spider from?"

"Behind the bike shed."

Bucky eyed her face. It was blank, smooth, as if this were any ordinary day. But she couldn't quite hide the outrage in her eyes – at Ed Miller and at Bucky for keeping her from her revenge. She stood very still, staring him down.

"Alice," he began, "I know what that Miller kid's been saying, but if you do anything to him he'll _know _it was you–"

"I don't care," Alice said smoothly. She tried to jerk away from him but he held her tight. Her eyes flashed.

"Miller's smart, Alice, he'll get his own revenge on you. His dad is the head of the school board – he could get you _expelled_. Just think for a moment!"

He could see in Alice's mutinous eyes that she wasn't listening, and with another jerk she broke free. Bucky looked over his shoulder. "You going to give me a hand here, Steve?"

Alice's eyes flicked to Steve, and for a moment she and Bucky just looked at him.

Steve stood with his hands bunched by his sides and his jaw clenched, his chest rising and falling from the brisk walk to the homeroom. His pale blue eyes moved from Bucky to Alice.

He took a breath. "How can I help?"

Bucky's mouth dropped at the betrayal. Alice's eyes gleamed.

"Hold the other pocket open for me," she said. Bucky could only watch in shock as the two of them rushed to Miller's coat. Steve had that sparking, clench-jawed energy about him which Bucky usually only saw when he was about to hit something, but he was only carefully unbuttoning the brown coat pocket with steady fingers. Alice, all cool stone to Steve's hot anger, pulled something out of her other skirt pocket.

"Where'd you get that?" Steve asked curiously as Alice primed the mouse trap in her hands and carefully slid it into Miller's other pocket. Steve closed it, and when no spring could be heard they stepped away from the coat.

"The caretaker's cupboard." Alice's eyes swept around the room as if searching for more opportunities for sabotage. "He leaves the key in his top desk drawer."

"What's next?" Steve asked, like a traitor. He looked at Alice like she was inventing the engine or travelling to the moon instead of planning malicious pranks.

"I'm going to build a trap at his house later."

"A _trap_?" Bucky exclaimed, galvanized into movement. "What are you, a big game hunter?"

"I am now," she replied with a bite of fury in her voice. "I was thinking Vaseline on his doorstep, or thumbtacks in his bed–"

"_Stop_." Bucky planted his feet and crossed his arms, to make his voice extra authoritative.

Alice and Steve did not stop. She'd pulled _another _mousetrap out of her pocket and Steve was suggesting ideas for where to put it.

Desperate, Bucky clapped his hands together. The sound was a loud shock in the quiet classroom, making Alice and Steve jump and turn to face him. "Just listen to me, for one minute!"

It worked. Kind of. They were quiet, and still, and watching him – one pair of blue eyes, one of green. Like a pair of evil twins.

Bucky pressed his advantage. "Believe me," he began. "I'm furious with Miller. I want to grab him around the ankles, hold him upside down and shake until his ribs fall out. But this" – he gestured at the mousetrap, at the coat on the wall – "is _not _the right move. I'm not saying this because he doesn't deserve it, or because you don't deserve to make this right, but this isn't the way to do it."

Alice's hand curled into a fist. "I can't just _let him-_"

"I know!" Bucky said quellingly. Steve's chin was jutted out. A worrying sign. "But if you do this, Miller will know it was you, and he will make your next three years _miserable_. Trust me. He'll torment you, and he'll torment Steve because Steve'll stick up for you." That made Alice hesitate so he pressed on. "This right here? This is only going to make things worse. You have to be _smart_, Alice."

Her shoulders went loose. "I don't know what to do."

"You should wait," he said, his voice kinder. "You're good at that. Wait, stick up for yourself where you can, and if you see an opportunity to make things right then take it. But this isn't that opportunity."

Steve's sharp-inhaled breath preceded his protest of: "But-"

"Don't you go and punch him either," Bucky said warningly as he rounded on his shorter friend. Steve's eyes flashed mutinously, but he didn't argue. Bucky held up his hands and looked between them. "I tell you what we're going to do. We're going to get rid of the traps in here, then we're going to go down to the cafeteria and have lunch. We're going to ignore Miller, and if anyone comes asking about those rumors we'll laugh them off. Because that's the _best _way of killing them." He paused, then added just to be sure: "And we're not going to build any _more _traps."

A few moments of silence followed that speech.

Alice breathed hard, as if she'd run a race, but Bucky could see the cold fury seeping out of her. Steve angled toward her, magnetized.

"Fine," she eventually said. Bucky let out a breath. "Can we leave the spider though? Without the envelope? No way he'll think that was me."

Bucky held her eyes for a few long moments. "The spider stays." He turned to Steve. "Now go give her a hug."

"Why me?" Steve said, suddenly wide-eyed. Bucky wanted to roll his eyes at him but resisted.

"Because I'm going to go tip that spider out of its envelope and try not to get caught in a mouse trap."

And he went and did exactly that. Bucky watched out of the corner of his eye as Steve walked stiffly toward Alice, who was still as stone once again, and then wrapped his arms around her. The classroom fell silent.

For a few moments they just stood like that, his bird-thin arms at a strange angle around her, the two of them barely touching. Then Alice's arms rose around his skinny torso and her eyes closed, and it turned into a real hug.

Bucky plucked out the envelope, tipped out the spider – _jesus, it's huge _– and buttoned the pocket again. Then he eased out the mousetrap, dismantled it, and turned around again. Steve and Alice still stood in the middle of the classroom, hugging.

Bucky wanted to make fun of them, but that'd just scare them away from each other and that was the opposite of what he wanted. So he just paced over and threw his arm around the two small blonde kids. They grunted in protest, and eventually Steve wriggled out, but they were both smiling.

Alice elbowed Bucky in the ribs to get free of his bear hug, then swept her hair away from her face and fell still. They all felt the moment her smile slipped.

"The rumors won't go away," she murmured. The words slithered around the classroom. Bucky and Steve went still. "They could… they could change _everything_."

"People in this neighborhood know Matthias," Steve said, instantly earnest and righteous. "They won't believe it."

"That's if the rumors even get out of the school," Bucky said encouragingly.

Alice's fingers slid beneath her eyes, and that was the first Bucky realized that she'd begun crying. He'd only ever seen her cry twice. "I've never been so angry," she said frankly. Her voice didn't wobble due to her tears – it was as if her face were merely leaking. "He went for my _family_. I wanted to… I couldn't think of how to hurt him most. Nothing seemed good enough."

"Nothing _is _good enough," Bucky said. He was still afraid Alice would try to murder Miller.

Steve stepped toward Alice. "He went after your family, which means he went after ours too." She shed another tear. "We stick together, Alice."

"Okay," came her whisper.

"You gotta know _when _to fight," Bucky said to both of them. They both nodded, as if that was obvious, but he knew he'd have to repeat himself before the day was out. He sighed. "Alright. Let's head down to the cafeteria."

Alice frowned. "I thought you said you wanted to fix everything in here."

Bucky held up the dismantled mousetrap. "I did?"

Her eyes cleared. "Oh. No, there's more."

Beside her, out of her eyesight, Steve's lips curled into a smile.

Bucky slapped a hand to his face. "Of course there is. Tell me?"

"There's a note in Ed's handwriting under the teacher's composition book" – Steve went to collect that, and snorted when he read what Alice had forged – "another mousetrap in his desk" – Bucky went to collect that one as well with a sigh – "and I also took the bolts out of his chair."

Bucky toed the chair, which creaked ominously. Between the three of them it took only a minute to screw the bolts back in, then they took their mousetraps and their forged note and crept out of the room, leaving only a very confused spider behind them.

Steve and Bucky kept close to Alice's sides as they walked back through the empty corridors. She appreciated it – she felt fragile, hollowed out, as if her sudden burst of chilling anger had sapped all her energy. She felt more thankful than ever for the two different and yet equally loyal boys on either side of her.

Once, the side of Steve's hand brushed against her own.

They finally reached the cafeteria doors, and Bucky let out a breath of relief that they hadn't been discovered. He pushed open the doors and flinched.

The cafeteria was in uproar. Ten times louder than when he and Steve had left, a positive roar of people talking poured out the open door. Inside, people milled around and gathered in groups, talking animatedly. Food trays lay half eaten and abandoned on the dining tables.

Bucky, Steve, and Alice pushed inside.

They got the story in snippets: _There was a fight._

Then: _Ed Miller's nose is broken!_

Alice looked between Steve and Bucky, confused. They shrugged and shook their heads.

Then Edith appeared before them, bright eyed and flustered. "_Mon dieu_! Alice!" she seized Alice's hands as if to seek her calm. "Ed Miller was telling more people those horrible things over lunch, but then Finn – Finn Neri – he overheard and went over. I tried to stop him, but he's so _big_, and he stood over Ed and demanded that he apologize to you for spreading lies." Alice blinked, her hands being shaken by Edith, trying to absorb this.

Edith continued: "Ed just laughed, so Finn _picked him up out of his seat and shook him_!" Edith's voice was a high squeak.

"_Finn_?" Alice's mouth dropped open. Finn had been her good friend since she first gave him that butterscotch candy back in first year homeroom, and he'd slowly come out of his shell since then. But he was the sweetest, gentlest person she knew. He was also the largest person in their year, but his size had never registered as _dangerous _to her before. She felt Bucky and Steve share a glance beside her.

Edith squeezed Alice's hands. "Ed got all scared and took it all back, but when Finn put him down Ed punched him! _And then Finn broke his nose_!" She finished on a high, breathless note, and for a moment Alice worried that she'd pass out.

"Where is he?" Alice breathed. "Finn."

"He and Ed got pulled out by their ears, I guess they're in the principal's office by now."

A group of girls walked past and Alice heard a snatch of their conversation: "- said he's going to be expelled!"

Her stomach dropped. Edith was still shaking her hands, eyes wild, but Alice turned to Steve and Bucky. Their eyes were wide.

She shook her head. "I-"

But at that moment the school caretaker rang the giant bell outside his office, signaling the end of lunch, and the hubbub in the cafeteria suddenly swept out of the room like the tide going out. Edith let go of Alice's hands, and Alice followed the tide back to her English class with Steve.

Alice sat numbly in her seat, exhausted in the wake of surprise, fury, shock, fear. Class began. She and Steve tapped out messages on their desks with their fingertips, deaf to their teacher's explanation of polynomials.

After the first afternoon period ended, Alice and Steve made a beeline for the school office. Bucky met them in the hallway on the way there.

"Finnigan Neri," he said by way of bewildered greeting. He'd clearly been able to think of nothing else in his class either. "Didn't think he could hurt a fly."

"Don't think he would hurt a fly," Steve corrected. "Just Ed Miller."

Bucky smirked.

They reached the school office corridor just as the glass-paned door at the other end opened and two people walked out. The first was a tall, angular-faced man in a dark suit, looking cross. He was closely followed by Ed Miller. He was in the year above, tall and dark-haired and reasonably handsome, though his looks were undercut today by the tissuepaper wadded around his bloody nose.

Steve, Bucky, and Alice stopped dead and pressed against the wall, as if that might hide them from view.

The dark suited man, no doubt Mr Miller, turned to his son. "Go get your coat and books, we're leaving." With that, the man strode down the side corridor toward the carpark.

Ed's shoulders slumped as he adjusted the wad of tissues in the hand pressed to his nose, and then sloped down the corridor toward Alice and the others. He didn't notice them at first, so they got to see his downcast eyes and the way his feet scuffed dejectedly along the ground. Bucky's arm rose to block Steve (or rather to prevent him from moving).

But then Ed got near the end of the corridor, saw three pairs of feet, and glanced up with wide eyes. When he spotted them he didn't stop walking. His eyes met Alice's and darted away before coming back to rest on her.

"Sorry," he gritted out as he passed.

Then he was gone, before Alice could think to respond.

She blinked, the wall cool at her back. She reflected on how she felt: not quite satisfied. More surprised.

Bucky slowly drew his arm away from Steve.

Then the school office door opened again, this time silhouetting a bulky figure in the room beyond. Finn. Behind him, Alice spotted their old Principal Neri at the office desk, signing a paper.

Finn stepped out into the corridor and closed the door behind him. Alice, Steve, and Bucky walked down to meet him.

Finn had grown into a gentle giant – almost twice Steve's size with beefy arms, soft eyes, and curly brown hair. A bruise was forming at the corner of his jaw.

"Hi Alice," Finn said sheepishly when he turned to see her.

She eyed him. "You're not expelled, are you?"

He shook his head. "Just suspended for two days. So's Ed." He made a face, then added: "Sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry!" Alice said, stricken. She stepped forward, reached up on her tip toes, and kissed the tall boy's cheek. "Thank you."

When she pulled away, Finn had gone bright red. Steve shifted behind Alice.

Finn looked over to Steve. "Sorry if I beat you to it," he said with a small smile. That made Steve go red and Bucky laugh. Finn turned back to Alice. "Just couldn't let Ed keep on… well."

"I know," Alice said, then repeated: "Thank you."

"I owed you one," he replied with a shrug. "See you at choir practice?"

"Alright," she smiled. Then Principal Neri emerged from the office, spotted the three students talking to his son, apparently couldn't decide whether to nod hello or to frown, then steered his son out of the corridor by the shoulder.

"Well," Alice said, deflated.

Bucky didn't speak for fear he'd spark another bout of revenge.

Steve, though, said: "How are you?"

Alice blew out a breath. Her eyes were fixed on the blank office door. "Not so angry anymore, I don't think."

"I'm glad," Steve said. Then: "He's probably found his coat by now. And it's cold out."

A slow grin crept across Alice's face.

The next day at school all anyone could talk about was _the fight_ (completely forgetting what had caused it in the first place), and how Ed Miller had squealed like a broken radio when a spider crawled out of his pocket and up his arm.

* * *

Excerpt from Smithsonian Museum Newsletter (2014), p. 2

_Among the new collection are never-before-seen artefacts from Steve Rogers's childhood home in Brooklyn, which he shared with his mother Sarah Rogers. These items were recovered from a packing box in the possession of the Barnes family, kindly donated in 2011. The items are in a remarkably well-kept condition, save for the work of some paper mites._

_The preserved items include:_

\- _A 1920s-era radio which appears to have been hand-modified. This suggests Rogers' early mechanical genius, which no doubt served him well in the battle of technology against HYDRA._

\- _Ticket stubs to movies and baseball games. Rogers appears to have had a penchant for adventure stories and sci-fi, and unsurprisingly rooted for the Brooklyn Dodgers._

\- _Records from his life: school transcripts, military identification for his father, his mother's employment contract with the hospital. Sheaves of medical records for himself (see p.3 re Rogers's pre-Rebirth chronic illnesses)._

\- _Drawings. Rogers was a noted amateur artist, with many reporting that he carried a sketchbook with him even on the front. These early drawings offer an insight into his childhood. We can see the landscapes of Brooklyn, the insides of classrooms, and several sketches of a girl, perhaps in her mid teens, in various settings. Perhaps an early sweetheart, though contemporaries are quick to joke about his inexperience with women. Perhaps an imagined woman. Perhaps a childhood friend. Either way, her identity is lost to time._

_Visit the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's new installation on Captain America to take a look at these historic artefacts in the flesh._

* * *

A week after Thanksgiving, the entire country celebrated at the announcement that Prohibition had been repealed. New Yorkers flocked to the speakeasies which had thrown open their doors, and a dozen bars opened up in Brooklyn within a few weeks of the repeal.

Alice, still only fifteen, celebrated by procuring a half bottle of whisky from a friend of hers and sharing it with Steve and Bucky in the back of Matthias's tailor shop.

"It's no Paris Side Car," Bucky said with the all the air of a connoisseur, and Alice and Steve threw skeins of wool at him.

When Christmastime came, Alice, Steve, and Bucky's families all went into Manhattan, along with plenty of other families and tourists. The occasion, as had been advertised for weeks in the papers, was the lighting of a Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. Apparently the owners had seen the tree that Steve, Bucky, and Alice had come across two years ago and liked the concept.

But this was no small tree decorated with paper garlands and tin cans. When the evening came Alice and her family squeezed through the thronging crowds in thick jackets and gloves to see a fifty foot tree looming at the far end of the Center, competing with the skyscrapers on either side for dominance. Christmas wreaths and garlands hung all about the center, and Alice could see hundreds of unlit electric lights hanging from the tree itself.

"Would you look at that," Matthias exclaimed. He hoisted Tom higher on his shoulder to give him a good view.

"I want to climb it!" Tom cried. Alice smiled.

"Maybe when you're older," her mom promised.

They found a good spot in the square, but after a few minutes Alice started shifting about restlessly, her feet shuffling and her head twisting around.

Her mom met her eye and sighed. "Alright, go on." Alice was gone in the next breath, barely hearing her mom's call of: "be careful!"

Alice squeezed through the New Yorkers pressed into the square. Her breath had been fogging on the way here, but the warm bodies all around her were making the back of her neck sweat. After a minute or two, she realized she was making no headway. So she looked around, glimpsing the center through gaps between adults' shoulders, then headed toward the adjacent building's craning windows. Once there, she climbed onto the stone ledge below and pulled herself up, putting herself above the level of the hot, noisy crowd.

She looked out. Rockefeller Center was _packed_, a mass of heavy-coated people in hats and scarves pointed towards the huge, dark tree. The sky had dimmed, making the skyscraper lights shine ever brighter.

Suddenly, she spotted conspicuous movement a few yards away.

"Steve! Bucky!"

The boys, who'd found each other a few minutes earlier and were pushing forward in search of where Alice had said her family planned to be, stopped in their tracks and looked around.

"Up here!"

Their heads swiveled towards the voice and then they both broke out in smiles.

Alice stood silhouetted in the golden light of one of the Rockefeller Center building's windows, her pale hair shining in the light as she waved madly at them. She looked like a Christmas ornament.

Steve and Bucky changed directions and pushed through the crowd towards her, finally pulling themselves up onto the sandstone ledge.

"Are we allowed up here?" Bucky asked as he dusted his hands off and turned to face the square.

Alice shrugged and helped pull Steve up. He tumbled into her and almost put her through the window. "Don't know. Haven't been yelled at yet." She patted Steve down. "Where's your mom?"

"She's with Bucky's family, don't worry. She likes his sisters."

"Can't see why," Bucky added cheerfully. He looked out at the mass of people. "Gotta say, I don't see what all the fuss is over this tree."

Alice thought about the first tree they'd seen two years ago and the way it had stopped the three of them dead in their tracks, and stayed silent.

A microphone squealed out across the bustling square and everyone fell still. A spokesperson in a flashy suit shone a grin. Alice thought he might be a radio presenter. She knew NBC was broadcasting the ceremony.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Rockefeller Center."

Alice, Bucky, and Steve leaned back against the gleaming window and listened as the speaker talked about Christmas, and hope, and community. Steve coughed, and Alice and Bucky looked over with alarm before he waved them off.

It was fully dark by the time the speaker drew to a close. Alice yawned.

"And with that, ladies and gentlemen, let's turn on the lights!"

For a second nothing happened, and Alice held in a hiccup of laughter at the idea that they'd all shown up just to see another prime example of New York's electricity system.

But then the tall, dark tree blazed into a light so bright that spots danced in Alice's eyes and she had to look away for a moment. Bucky let out a startled laugh beside her, and she heard Steve breathe a soft gasp. When she looked back the Christmas tree was alive with light: every branch glittered with golden orbs, turning it into a glowing monument. The crowd gasped and oohed and burst into applause as a choir beside the tree suddenly burst into song.

Alice realized a few seconds later that she was grinning. She and Bucky stood on either side of Steve on a window ledge they probably weren't supposed to be on, shivering in the dark as their eyes glowed in the light from an immense blazing Christmas tree.

She widened her eyes as if to take it all in and told herself to _remember. _She gathered in the moment, pressed it tight and stored it away. She might need it one day.

To her left, Bucky slung his arm over Steve's shoulder. She shuffled in closer and mirrored the movement, so the three of them stood in a half-hug as golden light poured out all around them.

That night Alice dreamed of a glowing golden tree, and song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spiders were harmed in the making of this chapter.
> 
> I added a few new songs to the Siren playlist on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmyEFm4fuH4p0qf3_NdQOQAiG9x82GOVH) if you guys are keen!


	12. Letters Across The Ocean (6)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: Mention of involuntary euthanasia

**Agnes Repplier: _Real letter writing… is founded on a need as old and as young as humanity itself, the need that one human being has of another._**

* * *

[Translated] Hitler's Declaration to the Reichstag, May 1935: 

_"Germany neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria or to conclude an Anschluss."_

* * *

_March 17th, 1938  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_I'm sorry I didn't write sooner, I promise I'm okay! I didn't realize how worried all this would make you until I got your letter just now. Honestly, there's been so much going on that I haven't had time to write you._

_Yes, Austria has 'united' with Germany. It took me by surprise, but it shouldn't have – people have been talking about this for months, and Germany has made its wishes pretty clear. There was even talk of invasion – when the Chancellor (now ex-Chancellor) said he wanted to hold a referendum, Hitler mobilized troops. So the Chancellor took it back what he said about a referendum, and then ended up resigning. His replacement, very clearly a Nazi sympathizer, announced the Anschluss. It sort of means 'joining' in English._

_I watched all this unfold in the newspapers and in the gossip channels, sitting in my uncle's drawing room as he rolled his eyes at the old Austrian Chancellor and openly welcomed the idea of German rule. I felt sick._

_Five days ago, thousands of German soldiers and police officers crossed into Austria and came to Vienna. I was out with _ _Jil_ _í when they arrived, and the two of us just stood on the stoop of our favorite bakery and stared as the sheer mass of them marched down the street. I thought all my old novels were fanciful, but the sound of thousands of feet marching in time on cobblestones really does sound like thunder._

_Jil_ _í took my hand at one point, holding it so tight my skin went white. Everyone around us cheered._

_So. Herr Himmler's now in charge of the Austrian police. I thought my uncle would be upset, given that the old police commissioner was his friend, but he just seems determined to befriend Himmler. The Austrian government passed the law reunifying our country with Germany and now, within the space of two days, I live in a German province._

_On the day of the Anschluss I wanted to stay with _ _Jil_ _í and Franz and their friends to make sure they were okay, but my uncle sent for me. As he walked me down the street, we came across a group of men forcing three men and a woman to get on their hands and knees to scrub the pavement clean – there was anti-Anschluss graffiti on the road. The men and the woman were Jewish, and as we approached one of the tormentors stepped on the woman's hand._

_I stepped forward, Steve, about to break my promise to you that I wouldn't punch anyone in the face. But my uncle dug his fingers into my arm and dragged me away before I could say a word. He dragged me all the way back to his house with a look of fury on his face, and yelled at me about _conspiring _for a whole half hour._

_My arm has bruises in the shape of his fingerprints._

_That day did something to me, Steve. And I've had barely a quiet moment since. As soon as the Anschluss was announced the city went wild – half of them celebrating, the other half, it seems, being arrested. Politicians and _intellektuelles_, and also Jews. The Jewish bank down the street's been closed down. I've seen cars and investments confiscated. Franz has avoided arrest so far, but he got fired from his porter's job. Apparently his boss apologized to him when he did it._

_Others haven't been so lucky, but _ _Jil_ _í and I have been busy. Not with anything illegal, don't worry, but we've been helping people sort of… fade out of the public eye. Quietly closing down businesses, selling things, procuring food, redirecting ire against them. That's been more my role – if a set of neighbors are angry at having a Jewish or politically active (read: not pro-Nazi) neighbor, I find something else for them to be angry about – how the new German police officers in the neighborhood are using too many resources, or how the upheaval in government has affected their taxes._

_At the moment we're just trying to keep people safe, but it seems pretty clear what the end result must be – the people in danger need to leave. _ _Lots of people don't want to, but it's pretty clear that's where this is headed. Some famous Austrian Jews have already left, some weeks before the Anschluss._

_They've been arresting and deporting people in Germany for months now, and now we are Germany. It might be giving in to what the Nazi party wants, but it's just safer elsewhere. I asked _ _Jil_ _í about her and Franz's plans, but she doesn't want to leave until she's gotten everyone she can out._

_Our plans are still in early stages, and it's difficult with my uncle watching me closer than ever, but I won't be idle another second longer. Not punching anyone in the face, but getting people out and safe before they're in a position to be forced onto their hands and knees on the street and made to scrub until their fingers bleed. If this is what I can do, I'll do it._

_Obviously, don't share this letter with anyone. Even in Brooklyn, it could be dangerous. I shouldn't even be writing this down – they're cracking down on 'political conspirators' in Vienna even as I write this letter. But I trust you. And I needed to tell you this._

_I can hardly believe it, but I forgot to tell you: I saw Hitler again, Steve. Only this time he stood in Vienna, at the Heldenplatz (the square outside the Hofburg palace), after his three-day triumphal tour through Austria. I didn't want to go, but my uncle made me. The crowd was almost in tears from how eagerly they cheered his arrival._

_Hitler called the union of Austria and Germany his 'greatest accomplishment'. I don't remember much of the speech, because I felt strangely numb and motionless (and very cold) as I stood in the square, but I remember that. Austria's his homeland, you know. He sees this as a homecoming. And when I stood in that square, surrounded by tens of thousands of cheering Austrians, I couldn't have told him he was wrong._

_Yours,  
Alice_

_PS: The night of Hitler's speech, my uncle brought me to another party and had me sing. Only this time the guests included German generals and officers, and pro-Nazi Austrian officials. If I'd known, I wouldn't have gone. But I stood there and I sang for them, and when they all stood up to applaud me all I could hear was the overwhelmed, adoring cheers from the Heldenplatz._

* * *

_March 19th, 1938  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_Getting your letter was a big relief – we've been reading about the Anschluss here in Brooklyn, about all the arrests and turmoil, so radio silence on your end had me pretty jumpy. I knew you were probably safe, what with your uncle's connections, but I also know you – you don't get into trouble very often, but you're always helping people who need it._

_Turns out I was right – please be careful, whatever you do. I agree that helping _ _Jil_ _í and whoever else you can is the right call, but be careful. I read today that they've opened a new concentration camp just outside Vienna – you're much better off helping the people you can, rather than going away for hard labor._

_I've been sitting here for half an hour trying to think of a way to convince you to come back to Brooklyn. You're nineteen now, you could do it. But every time I think of a good argument, I know it won't work. I know you'll stay in Vienna. Because you have friends there now – not just _ _Jil_ _í and Franz, but all the people you've met at the music club and that teahouse you like, and your friends in the music industry. And I know many of those people have got to be people that the German government have decided they don't like. So I know you'll stay to help them, however you can._

_If they're looking to get out, tell them to be careful about coming to America – for some godawful reason congress is opposing immigration from Europe, specifically Jews. If I had a way of sneaking them in I would, but I don't have the pull here that you do in Vienna. So just tell them to think about other options._

_I'm real sorry your home's been invaded. I know that's not what they're calling this, but that's what it sounds like. I know you came to like Vienna and made a place for yourself there, and I can't imagine what it's like to have German boots marching down the streets of your home. And I'm sorry you feel alone in not celebrating their arrival. I'm sure you're not alone. But sounds like it's dangerous to speak out right now._

_On that note, are you going to keep singing? I know there was talk about you putting out an album soon – obviously your priority is keeping people safe, but what has your uncle said about all this? I know Alice Moser's going to help people, but what will the Siren do?_

_I don't really know what to write, to be honest. I'm terrified for you. Bucky's worried too, I can tell, but he keeps telling me that countries merge and split apart all the time, that things will settle down soon. I think he's just trying to make me feel better, because I see him poring over each news report as soon as they come out. Keep us in the loop, Alice. And if you need any help, reach out. I might be able to scrape together enough money for a ticket to Vienna._

_I'm really glad you're safe. Keep it that way._

_Yours,  
Steve._

* * *

_April 11th, 1938  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_Yesterday Austria held a plebiscite. I told you about all the propaganda in the past few weeks – seems there's not been a single day where there hasn't been a Nazi on the radio or at some public appearance or another. Sometimes they play one of my songs, followed by a public message of support for the Anschluss. I feel so trapped – how did this happen? I don't want any part of this._

_Anyway, the plebiscite. To make things seem 'fair', the Nazi government has kindly asked Austria to vote on their support for the Anschluss and the change of government. So yesterday I went to the voting booth for the first time as an Austrian citizen. It was bizarre – the officials were just taking the ballot papers from people, instead of putting them in a box, and I saw more than one of them looking at how people had voted._

_My uncle went first, and the booths were very busy so I had a minute to think, by myself, standing alone at the front of the line. At least a few people in the room recognised me (one asked me for my autograph afterwards). Finally I got a voting slip and went to a booth._

_Steve. The plebiscite question was, essentially, 'do you agree with the reunification and do you vote for the party headed by our leader Adolf Hitler?' Underneath the question was a large circle with a large "Ja" over it. Then in the corner of the paper was a circle half its size, labelled "nein". I don't know how long I stared down at that paper, but I could feel my heart sinking. Because up until that moment I still had some hope that this could be temporary. But looking at that tiny circle in the corner of the paper, I knew that my _nein _meant nothing._

_Still, I put my cross in the smaller circle and handed it to the polling official. He didn't even look at it. I think part of me wanted him to._

_Jil_ _í and Franz were excluded from voting, as was every other Jew and everyone arrested for racial or political reasons._

_Results came in today. 99.73% of the country voted 'Ja'._

_Yours,  
Alice_

_PS: I'm sorry I haven't asked after you for a while. I've been… heartsore. And scared. But please let me know how everyone back home is doing. I think it might help to remind me that the whole world hasn't gone crazy._

* * *

Excerpt from article _ 'Siren Song: a snapshot of one of Europe's most prominent musicians' _ by Roger Howe, 1982 

_Reporting on the Siren before the war began is sparse, with the occasional article or poster preserved about one of her performances. Our understanding of her pre-war character is gathered from those who knew or met her in Vienna at the time._

_Olga Brunnheim recalls her prominence in Vienna's society scene: "I went to a party with the Siren once – before the war, this was. She and her uncle went to plenty of parties with the newly arrived Germans."_

_When asked about Herr Huber, the Siren's uncle, Mrs Brunnheim flaps a hand: "he was a social climber like the rest of us. They were always together, but I never remember much fondness between the two of them." She pauses for a moment. "She was a pretty thing, but didn't get much into dating. At least not that I heard of, and I heard of mostly everything those days. To be honest, she seemed quite… well, she didn't stick out for gossip much. She wasn't very outspoken. But she was a _presence."

_"How do you mean?" I ask._

_"She had this way about her… like she was somebody. It came out more when she was singing, like that's when she really let her true self out. I rarely spoke with her, but it was always striking when I did. She was always fair. Listened to people more than she spoke. She made you feel good when you spoke to her._" _Mrs Brunnheim smiles and leans back. "I guess that's how she got so famous."_

* * *

_May 5th, 1938  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_I'm still perfectly fine. Things have settled slightly here, but the Germans are implementing more anti-Jewish legislation every week, and a day doesn't go by that I don't hear about someone else arrested or deported. They're reporting that 3000 Romani have been arrested._

_Franz and _ _Jil_ _í are practically in hiding by now, they've started selling things on the black market to support themselves and continue to refuse most of the financial help I can offer them. My other friends aren't faring much better. Last week I and some others helped Lia Heim gather enough supplies and money for her whole family, and they left on the first train the next morning. When you walk through the city now you see ghost houses – vacated at a moment's notice, empty and graffitied with awful words._

_They've started burning books in Austria._

_I realize I have more friends than I thought I did – either people I met through _ _Jil_ _í or just people I ended up chatting to while trying to escape my uncle and his gilded cages. The Anschluss has brought us together – some are still rightfully distrustful of me, but mostly there's a good group of us working to keep people safe and out of the clutches of police._

_As for my uncle, he has apparently decided that now is the time to throw as many parties as he possibly can. I avoided them at first, because they are now even more than before filled with people I can't stand. But then, a few weeks ago, one of my uncle's guests was a police officer working under Himmler. I sang, was applauded, and afterward as I was trying to get as drunk as possible without my uncle noticing, I heard this officer brag to his friend about ten businesses they'd shut down that day, and how they were going to shut down another five the next day. After the party I climbed out my window and ran to _ _Jil_ _í and Franz's, and between the three of us we were able to put out the word. We didn't get the word quite far enough, but the next day when the police arrived to shut two of the businesses down, their Jewish owners had decided not to open that day in the first place._

_I couldn't stop the police from shutting down the businesses, but at the other three the owners and some of their customers were beaten, and one man arrested. It's not enough to make up for anything, or to even protect people much, but it was _something. _There is some value to be gained at my uncles parties after all. So I go along with them, and we're still recording the album, though my heart's not in it any more. The Siren feels more and more like a stranger to me._

_I'm glad Brooklyn's still mostly the same. Pass on my congratulations to Becca for graduating, and to Bucky for his new job. You mentioned you had a cough in your last letter – please, please take it easy. If you're mentioning a cough it must be serious, and you know there's no point in trying to muscle your way through it. Rest is the best cure. So rest!_

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

_June 19th, 1938  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_Well, it seems my uncle's high-and-mighty ideas aren't so far off after all. Last week we received an invitation to an event at the Schonbrunn palace, which we attended last night. Instead of my uncle 'strongly suggesting' that I sing at the event itself, the invitation specifically requested that I perform an aria for the guests._

_Well there was over a hundred people, which wasn't the problem as I'm used to performing for larger crowds by now, but I could not forget just what kind of people these were – this was an event for the newly-powerful members of Austrian society: pro-Nazi government officials, cultural leaders, and even some of the Nazi party themselves. It was an evening of self-congratulatory celebration, as if they aren't arresting innocent people in their homes and telling them to leave the country with no idea of where they ought to go._

_I think I might genuinely hate these people. I'll admit I'm not always the person with the coolest temper – I'm good at controlling my temper, certainly, but not at staying even-keeled in the first place. And all of last night I felt like there was a hot coal sitting in my throat, slowly burning its way down into my guts._

_The party was thrown in the first place to celebrate the visit of one of the top Nazi generals: Joseph Goebbels, the minister for Propaganda. No doubt he's here to keep drumming up support for the Reich in Austria._

_I avoided him like the plague, but in the middle of my performance I looked over to see none other than my uncle sharing a drink with him. Goebbels is a thin-faced man with sunken eyes and a receding hairline, and he came to Austria without his wife. As I watched, my uncle made him laugh._

_I felt like I was being strangled._

_I tried to seek some privacy after that, but of course there was the usual parade of people wishing to congratulate my performance. One lady in particular especially irritated me – she would not stop going on about how I had an 'interesting face', and how I ought to audition for a film. She's some Czech actress working in Berlin, and kept saying she could sort out an audition for me. One thing she said was pretty strange. She said "being a movie star puts you in the way of powerful men," and winked at me with a look towards Goebbels himself. Later, I saw him lean in close to whisper something into her ear._

_I guess these Nazi generals aren't as pure as they like to tell everyone._

_Anyway. I'm sorry this is another letter all about this strange situation we find ourselves in Austria, but it's taking up every aspect of my life. I'm just hopeful that the rumors about Germany being satisfied with taking Austria are true – there's been some talk that they want to expand further, but I think they're hardly likely to get the same welcome elsewhere that they got in Austria._

_Thinking of you,  
Alice._

* * *

Movie Review of _ The Devil's Mistress _ (2016): 

_… highly recommend watching this dramatization of the story of Lída Baarová, the woman who was the mistress of the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels for two years before World War II began. The film details Baarová's post-war arrest and subsequent death in disgrace in the Czech Republic. Baarová expressed no remorse about her past in her lifetime._

* * *

_September 5th, 1938  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_My birthday was okay, thanks for asking. My uncle threw a big party full of people I don't know, and when it was over I snuck out for drinks with my actual friends. I can't believe we're both twenty now. Seems like only yesterday I was twelve years old, staring up at Brooklyn Junior High and terrified I wouldn't make any friends._

_I'm glad you liked the album – I hope you didn't buy it though, I don't like the idea of you going hungry or running late on rent again just to listen to a few songs I sang. I should have just sent it to you. Can you refund yours and I'll send you a copy? I'd be very happy to spend my uncle's money on express shipping._

_Don't worry about me, I'm still being safe. We've got quite the little network now, and Franz is putting his old porter skills to work. It's not safe for me to write down too many details, because the police are getting ever more paranoid and I'm worried they might start reading mail. Just trust that I'm safe, _ _Jil_ _í and Franz are safe, and we're helping people._

_Quick question, I just wanted to ask if you thought this was strange as well – today when I went up for my yearly checkup at the hospital, they took down some of my information (who my parents were and their countries of birth, history of disabilities in the family, etc.) for a "hereditary database". When I asked why, they told me it's routine now. The doctor laughed at my concern and told me not to worry, because "you come from an excellent family". I told my friends (the ones my uncle doesn't know about) to avoid the hospital for now, just in case. What do you think?_

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

Excerpt from _ 'The Eugenic Policies of Pre-War Germany' _ by Werner Hugo (1978), p. 89: 

_In annexed Austria, the majority of newborns had their genetic information documented. Adults' information was also logged into these 'genetic information' databases which were compounded with school, employer, and criminal records. These policies began in Spring 1938, and individuals who did not fit into the Nazi ideological 'type' were selected and sent to clinics like the Am Spiegelgrund clinic in Vienna, which began euthanizing patients in the next year._

* * *

Excerpt from article ' _ The Real Story of the von Trapps' _ by Isabel Monteith (2016): 

_The von Trapp family did not flee from the Nazis in the dead of the night by hiking over the Alps. While it is true that their ideology did not align with the new Nazi regime's, and that Georg von Trapp refused to fly the Nazi flag out of the front of their home and refused to sing at Hitler's birthday party, the family simply traveled out of the country in September of 1938, heading to Italy. From there they journeyed to England, and finally settled in the United States before the war began._

* * *

_September 28th, 1938  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_I don't know if you got my last two letters, but I haven't received anything from you since the beginning of the month._

_Is everything okay? Your uncle hasn't found out about your correspondence through _ _Jil__í, has he?_

_Please write soon so I know you're alright._

_Yours,  
Steve_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I haven't gotten to your comments from last chapter, my computer has been dead + I've got family in town. Just skimmed over this chapter in the edit, so please let me know if there's any typos. I should be able to get to my inbox soon, I love hearing your thoughts and talking to you about them!
> 
> As for this chapter - fake movie review about Lída Baarová, real movie and real woman. Worth a watch. Also if you haven't seen The Sound of Music, what are you doing with your life?


	13. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Racism, violence.

**Hyginus: ** ** _Sirens were fated to live only until the mortals who heard their songs were able to pass by them._ **

* * *

1934

On Bucky's birthday, Matthias's band performed at a theater in Harlem which had been recently renovated and reopened after falling into disrepair – the _Apollo. _His band had been doing pretty well for themselves with the help of a new lady booking agent in Harlem, getting hired for performances at theaters and clubs every weekend. Matthias had even been able to fix their apartment's heater and buy Alice a new school uniform.

Alice's mom didn't earn much from her translation work and had been busy with Tom, who was learning to count and thought it was good fun to pull everything out of their cupboards to count it. Alice had put locks on her cupboard doors.

Alice invited Steve and Bucky to the _Apollo _performance. They'd only seen Matthias's band perform a couple of times so they readily agreed. They weren't allowed to be in the audience, but they were given three stools in the dark wings of the stage, up against the wall, and told not to move.

Alice disobeyed while the stage manager was backstage before the performance; she crept up to the corner of the heavy red stage curtain and peeled back the edge. The cresting noise of the crowd pushed through the gap, and Alice's eyes went wide at the sight of the packed rows, the fancy-dressed ladies and gentlemen in the balcony. Most of the audience were black, this being the Apollo, but she saw pale faces in amongst them. As if they could all get along for a night to enjoy a band play.

She crept back to her seat beside Steve and Bucky with a smile on her face. "They've managed to fill almost all the seats," she murmured. Her stomach fluttered, as if it were her about to emerge when those velvet curtains swung open.

Steve seemed to sense her thoughts. "It'll be you soon," he said confidently.

She shook her head at him, but she was smiling.

Minutes later the band filed onto stage (Matthias darting aside to ruffle Alice's hair), and then the curtains swung open to applause. Alice couldn't choose between staring at the band as they began playing their bright, brassy music, or out at the enraptured faces of the audience. She felt magnetized toward it all, an insatiable pull in her gut. Though she knew that this place didn't belong to her: this place was for Matthias, and for Tom, and everyone else who would never be given the chance to sing outside of Harlem.

She, Steve, and Bucky kept obediently out of the way, and danced in their seats.

Alice sang along softly to the songs she knew, especially to the one she'd heard Matthias compose at home during the soft, sleepy hours before bed. Bucky bounced his knees and tapped his fingers, always the dancer, and Steve listened with a half-smile.

Alice didn't realize she had an audience outside of Steve and Bucky until the band took a fifteen minute break and a dark-skinned lady in smart floral dress with enormous buttons came over and set her hand on her hip in front of Alice.

"You're Matthias's stepdaughter, right?"

Alice glanced up at the woman with wide eyes. The woman looked to be in her forties, with round hips, keen eyes and a shade of russet on her lips.

Alice nodded cautiously.

The russet lips curved into a smile. "That's right, he told me about you." At Alice's further confusion she pointed to herself. "I'm Bess, their booking manager. You're a singer, right?"

"Yes," Alice said confidently. Hesitation was useless. Steve and Bucky nodded when Bess's eyes flicked their way for a moment.

Bess stuck out her bottom lip. "Well, I've got a band without a singer this coming Saturday night at a club two blocks from here." Her eyebrows lifted. "Think you'd be up to it?"

The muffled murmur of the crowd behind the curtains concealed Alice's sharp intake of breath through her nose.

"Yes," she repeated, trying to keep her eyes from going round.

Bess gave her a second glance. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

Bess again cast her eyes in Bucky and Steve's direction, but they just looked back at her blankly (save for a ghost of a smile twitching at Bucky's lips).

Bess narrowed her eyes, but after a moment she shrugged, pulled a scrap of paper out of her pocket and scribbled on it, then pushed it into Alice's hands. "That's the details and a set list. See you then, songbird. You'll get ten dollars."

She walked off, heels clicking on the theater floor, and Alice's eyes bugged.

"Ten _dollars_?" she whispered.

Steve and Bucky grinned.

"Told you it'd be you soon!" Steve exclaimed.

"You'll knock 'em dead," Bucky agreed.

Alice pressed her hands to her cheeks. "I've only sung at church and parties before. I don't even know the band! What if I'm terrible?"

"Bess there clearly thought you'd be alright," Bucky reasoned, jerking his head backstage.

Steve set his hand on Alice's shoulder. She marveled, as she always did, at how light his touch was. "You don't talk about it much," he began, "but I know you want to be at a place like this someday, singing to a crowd like _that,_" he nodded to the crowd behind the curtain. "You perform to a church full of cold, tired people every Sunday and make 'em smile. You know how to do this." Steve had always been good at conviction, and as he looked at her his blue eyes held no doubt or possibility of hesitation. His belief in her made her pull her hands away from her cheeks. "Besides," he added with a small smile. "I bet you'll know that set list back to front by the end of tonight."

Alice looked down at the hastily scribbled set list in her hands. It was all jazz, blues, swing, nothing she'd sing in church or at school.

She smiled. "I already know it back to front."

Alice did end up checking with Matthias about Bess's offer, but he said that as long as her mom went with her she'd be fine. It was unsaid, but they both knew he could not go with her.

Saturday found her setting up with a band she'd met twenty minutes ago on a small wooden stage at an evening club, with just a screen between them and the gathered audience. Alice had caught a glimpse of them on her way in – finely dressed ladies and gentlemen sipping out of glinting cocktail glasses, sitting at tables with tealights flickering in the center. Her mom had gone to find a place at the bar after kissing Alice on the cheek.

Alice wore a slim green evening dress her mom had lent her, and had fidgeted as her mom patted her with powder and blush at her dressing table. It all felt very grown up. Her palms were sweaty.

The band were perfectly nice: three fellows from the Bronx with drawling accents and quick fingers on their instruments. They tried to hide their uncertainty about her. Their usual singer, the trumpet player's wife, was out with the flu.

Before Alice knew it a club employee pulled back the screen and a glinting audience sat before her. Watching. Anticipating. She swallowed thickly.

But then Billy the drummer struck up a beat, and the others joined in, and Alice spotted Steve and Bucky at a table up the back.

They wore their best suits and had slicked their hair to make them look older. When Alice spotted them they broke out in identical grins as if to say '_surprise!'_

When Alice sang the first bar of _It's Only A Paper Moon_, she was smiling.

After that first moment the crowd was hers. She spent the night in a heady rush of song, her head swimming and her eyes blurring in the lights. Her voice ran as clear as it ever did and by her sides, her hands rose and fell with the melody. The band beamed at her.

By the end her mom was in tears. Bucky stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled, and Steve looked on with a smile as if finally looking at a picture he'd always imagined, but never seen.

* * *

Podcast Series 'The Pre-War Years', episode '_The Harlem Rennaisance'_, 2015.

_"… _ _an explosion of art, culture, music, and society that began and centered in Harlem in the 1920s. It brought worldwide attention to African American literature, art, music, novels, poets, and playwrights, and was the origin of a lot of the music that we know and love today. Hayley, do you think there's another cultural movement in the pre-war years that really holds a candle to this one?"_

* * *

The next month, Alice asked Finn Neri out on a date.

They'd been spending more time together since he got suspended for punching Ed Miller last year, and after a few months of rumors circulating about the two of them, and Edith encouraging her, Alice had asked him if he wanted to go to the soda fountain with her.

They sipped coke and talked about whether or not the police would catch up with Bonnie and Clyde or John Dillinger's gang, and at the end of the date Alice let Finn walk her home and kiss her on the cheek.

Bucky teased her mercilessly at school the next day. Steve said nothing.

After the third date, Alice realized she'd made a mistake. She knew what love looked like, since she saw it every day at home: Matthias dancing her mom around their threadbare apartment to Duke Ellington on the radio, her mom stroking Matthias's tired face when they thought everyone else was asleep.

Alice was sure she'd be able to identify that feeling in herself, even the beginnings of it, but she never saw herself feeling that way toward Finn. She was very fond of him, but _this _was not _that._

So she told him so. He seemed a strange mix of relieved and disappointed, and Alice realized she might not have been the only one feeling pressure to find a _person._

The next time she went to the soda fountain was with Steve and Bucky again, and she didn't realize that the tingling prickle she felt when Steve's hair brushed over his forehead was the very beginnings of that feeling she'd thought she was so sure she could identify.

* * *

Alice spent the summer obsessed with the Kate Smith Hour on the radio, and saving up money from her singing gigs to buy Steve a decent birthday present. She got hired to perform at a few bars and old speakeasies, since now that alcohol was legal again performers were in high demand, and Bucky and Steve sneaked in to cheer her on when they could. No longer did she only sing lofty, choral songs on Sunday – she sang jazz and blues, the stuff she heard on the radio, and she loved it. It was all mostly community work, but a few articles about her cropped up in the papers. Matthias framed every single one.

Halfway through summer break, Bucky announced that he wasn't going back to school in September.

"I've learned everything I wanted to learn," he told a dumbstruck Alice and Steve, leaning back on the heels of his palms in the grass at the Brooklyn Bridge Park. "Besides, since Ma lost her washing job I need to help them out" – sensing Steve and Alice's intakes of breath he held up a hand – "No, don't offer to help, you've got enough going on with your families." He smiled at them. "I don't mind. I want to get out there, use my hands and earn my way. My cousin got me a place working construction on the new docks in Hell's Kitchen, and after that he says there's always work in Red Hook."

Steve watched his friend with furrowed brows. "Be careful." Labor work wasn't the safest job in the city, and Red Hook wasn't the safest neighborhood in Brooklyn.

Alice cocked her head. "Have you told your parents?"

"Not yet," Bucky said with a half-smile at her perception. "I'm going to tonight, but I wanted to let you two idiots know you'll have to fend for yourselves when you go back to school."

"How will we ever survive," Alice said dryly.

Bucky pointed at her. "I think you underestimate the number of times I've kept you two out of trouble. Without me, all impulse control goes out the window."

"That ain't true," Steve cut in with a laugh. "Alice has impulse control."

Bucky just shot him a skeptical look.

Alice rearranged her skirt around her crossed legs and turned her face to the sun for a moment as Steve and Bucky bickered. Other friends of hers had left school to support their families, but it felt much closer to home with Bucky, despite his easy smiles. She knew he'd be okay: Bucky always was, no matter where he landed – he didn't take things to heart the way she and Steve did. He'd make friends, and flirt with girls while wearing his denim overalls and smelling of sea salt. He wouldn't drift away from them.

Alice opened her eyes again.

"What do you want to be?" she asked.

Steve and Bucky looked over. Steve squinted in the sunlight, his blonde hair tickling his brow.

Alice leaned forward. "Who do you want to be? When you…" she waved a hand. "Grow up."

"I'm plenty grown up," Bucky said, mock-offended. But at seventeen, he was still growing more lanky and broad-shouldered by the month.

Alice just raised an eyebrow.

Bucky shrugged. "No idea. I guess that's part of why I'm doing this. School hasn't helped me figure out what to do, so I'm going out to try stuff out." He turned to Steve. "What about you, Picasso?"

Steve's cheeks went pink and he glanced down to tug on blades of grass. "I don't know. Art school'd be nice, if I could afford it. I'd want to do graphic art, or… something." He kept his eyes downcast, as if afraid of his own dreams.

"And?" Alice prompted.

Steve's eyes flickered to her face for a moment, then down again. "I'd sign up to fight to protect people."

Summer breeze blew across the grass, shifting it and changing its patterns.

Bucky sneezed. "No need to sign up, you've been doing that for years."

Steve smiled down at the grass, and Alice smiled for him. He had two impossible dreams, but she believed he was stubborn enough to see them through. Only one of them terrified her.

Steve plucked out a blade of grass, smoothed his fingertips down it, then glanced up. "What about you, Alice?"

"I'd like to marry a baseball player and become so rich that I can bathe in wine and never wear the same outfit twice."

Bucky and Steve doubled over laughing. They were too used to the blank, deadpan way she delivered jokes now, she'd have to find new ways to surprise them. After a moment she smiled too.

"You change your team loyalty every Tuesday Al, don't know if your husband would be too keen on that," Bucky laughed. Steve rolled his eyes.

"A good old-fashioned millionaire then," she conceded. Then she propped her chin in her hand and thought about it. "No, I wouldn't like being someone's housewife. I want to work, like my mom."

"Go on then," Steve said with a smile. "What'll you do for a living?"

"Bank robberies?" Bucky suggested.

Alice threw a twig at him. "No. I want to go to a music school." She said it so smoothly, as if it were something she'd told everyone she'd ever met, but the moment the words left her lips she realized she'd never spoken them aloud. She continued: "Julliard or the Manhattan School of Music, so I can be close to home. Or there's the New York College of Music." She nodded to herself then fell still. "But there's no way I'd be able to go."

Bucky and Steve didn't need to ask: _money. _Silence fell between them for a moment or so, each of them thinking of the dollar signs between them and what they wanted.

Alice cleared her throat. "I'll have to settle for the baseball player, then."

Bucky and Steve laughed again, and after a few more moments they decided to take a walk along the water. It was a beautiful day, after all.

* * *

One morning at the end of July, Alice woke and sloped into the main room of the apartment to see her mom frowning as she looked down at the paper, a cold mug of tea sitting beside her. She could hear Matthias and Tom playing in the other bedroom.

"_Mama_?" Alice murmured as she dropped into another seat at the table. She rubbed sleep out of her eyes. "_Was ist los_?" [_What's the matter?_]

Her mom looked up. "The Austrian Chancellor was murdered yesterday."

Alice scratched her cheek. "Oh."

Her mom laid the paper down, still frowning. "By Austrians in the Nazi party. The Italians are defending Austria's independence, _danke Gott_, and Herr Hitler is saying he had nothing to do with it." Her frown deepened. "The chancellor… I did not like him, but he did not deserve to die. I'm worried what this will mean for our country."

Alice eyed the photograph of the dead Chancellor in the paper; a round-faced pale-eyed man with a mustache. "Well they'll get a new Chancellor, won't they?"

"I don't know if that's what Germany wants."

"It's not up to them!" Alice exclaimed. She didn't feel all that connected to Austria any more – she remembered it fondly, but her life was here – but that made her indignation rise.

Her mom raised a fine blonde eyebrow and smoothed down the newspaper. "Someone had better tell _them_ that, then."

* * *

A few days after Alice turned sixteen, to all the fanfare of a dinner at home and a movie with Steve and Bucky, she and Steve went back to school without Bucky. They'd never had classes with him, but it felt strange to sit sleepily at a desk while Bucky was out there somewhere working in the sun. Alice's thoughts were equally on her little brother, who had started kindergarten that day and had seemed teary about the prospect that morning.

She hoped, rather than believed, that school would go smoothly for him. When she thought about some of the things she'd been through…

She shook away the thoughts. There was nothing she could do to protect him from here, and he was only in kindergarten after all.

Steve and Alice didn't have enough money to go meet Bucky at the docks in Manhattan, so they went to sit on the curb outside his family's tenement to wait for him. They tossed pebbles into the gutter and pored over Alice's book/box of useful tools, to which she had added significantly over the past few years. The book's navy blue cover had faded to grey.

When Bucky showed up, his dark hair in his eyes and his clothes filthy, he flashed a white grin at them.

"Wait there," he greeted them. "I'll get cleaned up and we'll head to the diner. I'm starving."

* * *

Excerpt from '_Love and Color in America' _(1998), p. 110:

_While mixed race couples did marry and live together in this time, they could not be without fear for their safety. The Mann Act, originally adopted to prosecute the trafficking of women and girls across state lines, was used by racist police forces to prosecute couples in consensual relationships who travelled interstate._

_In the first decade of the twentieth century there were strong pushes to make an amendment in the constitution banning all interracial marriage._

_… _ _The last United States law officially prohibiting interracial marriage was not repealed until 2000._

* * *

That year, their lives felt more _adult_. They still ran down back alleys and threw rocks at trash can lids, but they preferred to go to soda fountains and diners, or the park. They all had jobs of a sort. Steve had a string of weekend jobs that he got fired from for arguing with customers or not showing up when he got sick, and the occasional art commission. He started going to an art class on Wednesday evenings when Alice had typewriting class.

Alice made pocket money from her singing gigs, and in the summer break had started helping out in earnest at the tailor shop. Matthias was run ragged between the band, the shop, and home, so she helped out with mending, washing, measuring, and even learned how to knit so she could help him when the winterwear came in.

On clear nights when her dreams kept her awake, Alice liked to creep up to the roof of the tenement building and watch the stars. She had her own spot: a concrete slab beside the brick barrier that overlooked the street below and gave her somewhere to rest her head. One of the bricks was loose, and behind it she'd hidden a tiny set of binoculars and a few scraps of paper in case she felt the urge to write the music that drifted through her mind.

Tonight though, she just rested her chin on her folded hands on the brick barrier, closed her eyes, and _listened. _She wore the thick woolen pajamas and socks that she'd slipped out of bed in, shielding her from the fall breeze. The city sounded alive to her.

Until it sounded _wrong._

First it was just a snatch of voices from the street below – not uncommon despite the late hour, so she ignored it. But instead of fading the voices rose, turning ugly, and then she heard the scuffling sounds of shoes on pavement. She opened her eyes just as a grunt of pain punctuated the night air.

Hair rising on the back of her neck, Alice looked down.

At first all she caught was the gleam of a street lamp off five heads of hair, and dark clothed limbs in a tangled mass. Their shadows were thrown long in the light of the streetlamp; a tangled monster of darkness.

Then one figure tumbled away from the rest onto the road, and with a sick twist Alice recognized its voice:

"_Agh_! Please, just take my money, it's yours-"

"I bet it's not even your money," sneered one of the dark shadows. "You come into this neighborhood and steal things, boy?"

"I live here, please just let me go home to my family," Matthias pleaded, rising to one elbow as the four men loomed over him. His shirt sleeve dangled, torn open. Just before the mens' shadows spilled over his face Alice saw slick blood gleaming on his cheek.

Ugly names floated up to the rooftop like departing spirits.

Alice wasn't there to hear them.

She thundered down the tenement stairs in her socks, her breath a cold spike in her throat, then burst out the front door onto the street and looked around wildly. The men were still where she'd last seen them, but one of them had grabbed the front of Matthias's starched white band shirt and was hitting him with sick thudding sounds. Matthias scrabbled uselessly trying to throw up a hand to defend himself and the other three men looked on with darkness in their eyes.

"_Stop_!"

Alice's mom had often described her as a 'big voice in a small body'. But never had she thrown her voice as large as that night. The men stopped. The one at the front withdrew his fist, but still held Matthias propped off the ground like an unruly bag.

Four sets of blurry eyes took in the sight of Alice as she stormed across the dark street toward them, her blonde hair frizzing around her face like a static cloud and her eyes swallowing the shadows around her. "Let him _go_!"

She seized Matthias's shoulder and tried to physically yank him away from the first man, but as if coming out of a momentary freeze he redoubled his grip on Matthias and resisted her. Alice caught the sharp sour smell of alcohol in the air.

"Go back inside," Matthias groaned as he got his knees under him. One of his eyes was completely shut up, like she had seen on Steve once after a pair of senior boys worked him over, and his white dress shirt was splattered red. _Turn the other cheek._

"Go on inside," said another one of the men to Alice. His eyes were spiderwebbed with red veins. "There's nothing for you out here."

The men loomed in and over her like one staggering mass, and Alice reeled under the scents of booze, blood, and stale sweat. The first man dropped Matthias and then kicked him in the ribs, almost as an afterthought.

"_Stop_," Alice repeated. She darted forward and put her hand to where Matthias had been kicked, making him hiss. He raised his hand and batted at her as if to push her away.

"Go inside," he groaned. "Allie-"

Alice turned on the men. She tried to memorize their faces but their features slid in front of her eyes like smoke. They seemed as tall as mountains. She realized her heart was pounding so hard in her chest it felt as if it were suffocating her. "Please."

"You want this criminal in your streets, little girl?" called one of the men with a curl to his lip. He shouldered past her and crouched down to seize Matthias's lovely black hair. Matthias's teeth flashed in the darkness. "You want him sneaking around in the dark?"

"Stop!" Alice pulled at the man's shoulder, feeling thick muscle, and he let go to shrug her off before sinking his fist into Matthias's gut. Matthias's voice wheezed out of him like a punctured tire. Alice did not think to scream, had never been one to scream when scared, but something about that visceral blow made her suck in a sharp, high breath.

She'd never gotten in a fight before, but before she knew what she was doing she was _fighting. _She threw herself at the man who'd hit Matthias and tore at him with her fingernails, ripping at the side of his neck as he stood up and then pummeling him, throwing her whole weight against him to get him _away _from the man curled up and gasping behind her. The others moved forward, their voices an indistinguishable alcohol-soaked burr in her ears, so she threw herself at them too.

She would not realize until later, but she was screaming. She knew she was crying, because the tears blurred her vision, but she saw enough to see a shape and _attack. _She bounced off one wall of muscle and heard a laugh so she ducked, angled her arm and then slammed her elbow upwards into soft, sensitive flesh.

The laugh turned into a howl.

Then a hand swung out of the edge of her vision and into the back of her head, knocking her head-first down to the edge of the sidewalk. Her chin cracked off the corner of the curb and exploded starbursts behind her eyes, and then her face slid down the gravelly side of the curb down to the road. Her face felt wet, and hot.

She didn't faint away like in the movies, didn't wake up on a low-lying couch with gentlemen fussing over her. She stayed awake with her head in the gutter, her ears ringing and her whole face stinging with pain as she saw four sets of dark brown shoes walk away – out of the pool of streetlight, and into the darkness.

She blinked, and it seemed to take a while for her eyes to open properly.

Matthias groaned as he sat up. He then made a sound that would stay with her for the rest of her life: the sound of a man who thought his child was dead.

The sound made her roll over to see what was wrong, and then Matthias choked on a gasp and rushed over to her, wincing and hissing as he did.

"_Alice_," he whispered, "Allie, can you hear me?"

"Yes." The word tasted like blood, so she spat. Matthias's face was round and wet in the streetlight, the white around his uninjured eye so wide he looked like one of those Halloween posters. "Are you okay?"

His large dark hand rose to brush her hair away from her face, which she realized was a difficult task given all the blood matted in it. He took her jaw and tilted it, his good eye assessing with a frightened glint. "You're okay," he breathed. Touched a spot on her chin that made her jerk away. "You're okay?"

She nodded, which made her kind of dizzy. Her throat felt raw.

"Let's get inside."

Together they rose and staggered into the tenement. Matthias groaned lowly under his breath all the way up the stairs, and when Alice reached to support him he winced away. She wasn't sure if she'd touched an injury or if he was just afraid of more pale hands reaching out of the darkness.

They woke her mom and Tom when they fell into the apartment. Tom started crying without ever having seen who caused the sudden noise, but her mom flew out of her bedroom, saw them silhouetted in the gloom and barely concealed a scream.

Alice thought for sure she would scream when they turned the light on, but she only let out an awful shuddering sound like a ship creaking apart at the seams and went very, very white.

After that, she got to work. Alice's mom sat them both down at the dining table, looked between them both, then when Alice reached out to grab Matthias to stop him keeling over where he sat, got to work on Matthias first.

She pressed a hot, wet towel into Alice's hands. "Hold this over your chin," she urged. "_Dicht_." [_Tightly._]

Alice obeyed. Her chin stung, but the pain cleared her head a little. The hazy streetlight, the gloom of the tenement stairwell, the sudden white light of their apartment had all felt like a dream. The strange kind of dream that you woke up from with sweat on the back of your neck and a deeply disturbed feeling. But she knew she wouldn't wake up.

She held the hot towel to her chin and watched her mom wipe blood away from Matthias's dark skin and ask him questions in a whisper. Only questions about where he hurt: she didn't seem to need to ask what had happened.

Matthias was lethargic, but he promised it was just from exhaustion and from being knocked around – his head felt fine. He kept leaning past Marie to look at Alice, to ask how her head felt and was she feeling sick, or confused.

Alice frowned. She knew why he asked, and she didn't think that's what was wrong with her. Her chin hurt, and the heels of her palms were skinned, but her confusion wasn't because she'd hit her head. She felt… she felt as if she'd passed into a new world after stepping into the sickly yellow pool of that streetlamp.

She answered his questions quietly, and handed towels and bowls of water to her mom with her free hand when she needed them. She stood up to pour a bowl of soupy red water down the kitchen sink and stopped short at the sight of her reflection in the dark window.

Her face was scarlet with blood. It had dried, leaving smears and drips of red across the lower half of her face and down her neck. Her hair on the right side of her head was stiff and crackly with it. She reached up to touch it and flakes of blood fluttered down into the sink.

She peeled the towel away and looked at her chin. It wasn't a very big cut, for all that blood: a shallow dark-seeping gouge at the very tip of her chin.

Alice pressed the towel back and looked up. Her own wide green eyes stared back at her in the glass, as if to ask _what does it mean, that this has happened? Who are we now?_

"Alice," called her mom softly. "I'm going to take Matthias to hospital." Alice looked up, eyes even wider. "I think he's going to be okay, but I want to make sure. Go get your coat."

Alice shook her head. She knew that only one of them could go into a hospital looking like this. It had to be Matthias. "I'm okay," she croaked. "I'll just put a plaster on it. It's not bad, really." The words tasted false, though she really believed the cut would be fine.

"Take Alice," Matthias said through swollen lips.

Alice just shook her head again.

Tears in her eyes, her mom nodded.

But before they left, Alice's mom crouched in front of Alice and cleaned her face with a fresh towel. She even squeezed the blood out of her hair. Then she fetched fresh gauze and a plaster, and covered up the wound. That done, she leaned in and pressed a kiss against her cheek.

"My brave girl," she murmured. "Go get some sleep."

When her mom went to go get Matthias's coat, Alice stood up and went over to Matthias's chair. He looked up at her with a single, pain-filled eye. His face looked blotchy and swollen, and he tilted to one side in his chair.

"Allie," he choked out. She'd never heard him sound like that.

She leaned down and kissed his cheek, just like her mom had kissed her. "Get better," she said.

"I will," he promised.

Alice walked into her bedroom, where her mom had lain Tom down to sleep again, and curled into bed beside him.

She lay in the dark with her chin throbbing, and listened to Matthias and her mom whispering as they left the apartment. She couldn't make out the words. She heard her mom's voice wobble.

Then the apartment was silent.

Tom's breaths were light, barely there.

It was far too late for Steve to be awake. But after a few minutes of lying in the dark beside her small, warm, brother, Alice crawled out of bed again and went to the radio. She turned it on to a soft crackle, and tapped out notes on the telegraph key: _Ulysses._

She got only silence in return.

* * *

Matthias was still gone the next morning – at the hospital for observation but doing fine, her mom explained after wrapping Alice in a tight, warm hug. Then there was Tom to wrangle, and Alice's chin to be fussed over, and before she knew it Alice was grabbing her book strap and heading out the door.

Steve stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her waiting at their usual meet-up spot on the way to school.

"Is it obvious?" Alice asked, touching the plaster just on the edge of her chin. The swelling had gone down overnight and the bruise was hidden under the plaster.

"You…" It wasn't until Steve glanced down that Alice realized he hadn't even noticed her chin, but had been watching her eyes. "Are you hurt? What happened?" He closed the distance between them in a rush and ducked to look at the plaster.

"I'll tell you on the way."

Alice described the events of the night before in a low murmur as they walked the three blocks to school. Steve's face went from still, to terrified, to furious and terrified, and when she finished he was all righteous and indignant like that first time she'd seen him standing up with clenched fists as he stared down their bully of a teacher. Usually that look made her worried for his safety, but now it made her smile for the first time since last night. Nothing, she realized, was so terrible that Steve Rogers would not try to fight it.

He veered between making angry speeches about the men, to fussing over Alice's chin even worse than her mom had, and asking if she was _okay. _She knew he didn't mean the chin.

Alice was usually quiet, calm, but Steve sensed something different about her stillness that morning. She'd been shaken. Something had happened behind that hard, resilient shell she always kept wrapped around herself, and Steve suspected it was the kind of thing that didn't go away. Sometimes he wished she'd crack even for a moment so he could see her plain, bare feelings, but he knew she never would. Alice didn't crack. She opened up and shared when she was ready to.

He'd have to wait.

Then they were at school, and there was no more time to talk about it. In their shared classes Steve tapped out jokes in Morse code to make her smile, and at lunchtime she went to the nurse's office because her mom had asked her to. Just in case. When Edith asked about the plaster, Alice said she'd hit her chin on the edge of a sidewalk. _Not a lie._

They next got a chance to talk alone after school, as they walked through Brooklyn to the train station at Union Street where Bucky had promised to meet them. Only they didn't talk right away. Alice watched her scuffed shoes step over the sidewalk and wore silence like a cloak. Steve put his hands in his pockets and matched her stride.

The streets were growing cold again, reminding him of the first time he'd really, _properly _met her – soaking wet and spitting mad as she fished her book out of a puddle. He'd thought back then that he didn't understand girls, and he definitely still didn't now, but he understood Alice. It had taken a long time, but he certainly hadn't minded. Alice seemed to relish in going unnoticed, but it had been impossible for him not to notice something new about her every day of the past four years he had known her. Today, he noticed that pain – the type that must be throbbing from her chin – made her eyes tight and hard like twin green river stones. He didn't like it.

When they were almost halfway there, she spoke.

"Are you scared, when you get into fights?"

Steve was silent for a long moment, looking at her. She noticed his gaze but didn't meet it. He shrugged. "I don't really put a lot of thought into it, to be honest." She snorted, and he rolled his eyes. "I mean, what usually happens is that I realize something is _wrong _and then I'm just there. Trying to stop it. I guess I'm wary about the pain, because I have a pretty good idea of how much something is going to hurt, but that doesn't mean I don't do it anyway." He frowned. "Does that make much sense?"

"It does," Alice murmured.

Steve glanced sideways at her again. "Were you scared?"

Her head tipped back and she took a long breath. "Yes. I was scared the second I saw him down there."

"So you were scared for him."

Her eyes flicked to Steve. "Of course I was."

"Were you scared for yourself?"

She thought about it, and he saw a shadow go over her face at the memory. "I guess so. Not until I was on the street and suddenly they were all taller and bigger than me, though."

"You didn't run." He couldn't take his eyes off her. Their footsteps scuffed on the pavement.

"No," she said softly. "I didn't."

He smiled, but then it wavered. "Kinda wish you had."

"And I always wish that you would, too."

More footsteps in silence. A pigeon pecked at Steve's shoes and he shooed it away.

"I don't know why I fought them," Alice said.

"What do you mean?"

She pushed her fine blonde hair behind her ears, and Steve noticed her fingers shaking. "I mean I… I've never been like that, Steve. I lost all control, I just… I didn't know all that was inside me. In my mind it's always been… you're the fighter, Bucky is the peacemaker, and I… I _scheme_." Steve knew that was Matthias's word for it. "But then… last night. I didn't even really try to talk them down. I just attacked them. Why did I do that?"

Her thoughts unspooled out of her like tangled barbed wire. Steve could feel them: sharp and precarious.

He put his hands in his pockets and sighed through his nose. "Because they were assholes."

That startled a wet laugh from her, and she finally looked straight at him.

He half-smiled at her. "Maybe that's not, uh, the right word, but you know what I mean. They were assholes, they were bullies, they thought they could hurt someone you loved and get away with it. And you might be a schemer, but you scheme to make things right. What you did, fighting them… you were trying to make things right. You let them know that they can't just hurt whoever they like."

"I'm not sure if I did," Alice murmured, but she looked better. As if she'd stepped out from a shadow. The tangled spools of her thoughts reeled back in.

"Maybe not," Steve acknowledged. "But you protected your step-dad. That's nothing to be scared of."

She looked at him again. "Are you scared of me?"

The question took him aback. He remembered thinking early on that Alice Moser was scary; the way she hid so much under an innocent façade and how she went about seeking calculated revenge. But the answer to her question came easily: "No."

Her eyebrows rose slightly.

He cocked his head. "Are you scared of me?" It was a laughable question really, with his skinny arms and wheezy lungs and the way he was always just below eyesight, but Alice looked at him seriously. "You said you were scared of the way you just busted out fighting, and I… I…" he didn't know how to put it, but he could see that Alice understood.

Her green eyes cleared. "No," she said. She smiled like she'd just taken a breath of fresh air, and Steve was helpless to do anything other than smile back. "You're alright, Steve Rogers."

He glanced away. "Might need your eyes checked, Alice Moser."

"Don't think I do."

The tone of her voice startled him, but then there was a shout of "Hey, punk! Troublemaker!" and they both looked up to see Bucky waving like a maniac on the other side of the street.

Bucky quickly went from carefree to panicked and mad when he heard.

"Did you recognize 'em? We could tell someone-"

"They weren't from round here," Alice cut in quietly. "Wrong accents. And Matthias would never want to cause more trouble anyway."

Bucky fussed as they walked to the cheapest soda fountain in the neighborhood, stopping every few blocks to check the purple bruise under Alice's chin. Alice would have gotten annoyed, but he did the same with Steve whenever he got beat up, so she just stood still and let him fuss.

When they got there and took a seat at a stained booth, Alice folded her hands in front of her and stared Bucky down. "I know you've been showing Steve how to defend himself," she said. It hadn't been a secret – Bucky's dad was friends with the owner of the local gym and let him go in after hours, and Bucky had been in the boxing club at school for years. After Steve's really bad beatup with the senior boys Bucky had taken it upon himself to teach Steve how to at least duck. Alice had never felt the need to go. She was the schemer, after all.

Bucky, who'd been in the middle of talking about how the soda here tasted weird, frowned. The jukebox in the corner played Glen Miller.

Alice's eyes bored into his. "Teach me too."

His mouth opened. "But-"

"Bucky."

He shut his mouth.

"Teach me too."

Bucky looked to Steve, who was no help when it came to Alice as per usual, then back to Alice. He shifted under her direct gaze and the seat squeaked.

"Okay," he sighed. "Fine."

* * *

Matthias was at home when Alice got back.

He somehow looked worse than he had last night – his wounds were stale now, swollen and purple, and his joints were stiff as he turned around to look at her. Bucky and Steve had left Alice in a relatively good mood, but suddenly she wanted to cry.

"Allie," Matthias breathed. "C'mere."

She ran across the apartment to him, hesitated a foot away, then stepped into his open arms. She was careful when hugging him – barely any pressure at all, fingers feather-light. He angled away from her chin and stroked the back of her head.

"How're you doing?" he asked, and Alice realized that part of the reason she'd been so terrified last night was that he had barely been able to speak.

"Better than you," she said, and he laughed and then winced.

"Let's sit down."

They shuffled over to the couch. Sunlight streamed into the small apartment through the kitchen window, dusty and golden. The apartment felt like home again.

Matthias explained that her mom and Tom were out at the store, and then his eyes (the right one peeking through a massive bruise) grew serious.

"How did you see what was going on last night?"

Alice swallowed. This conversation, stupidly, hadn't occurred to her. She didn't have a lie ready. "I was on the roof." At his steady gaze she added: "Sometimes I can't sleep. No one else goes up there."

His face drew up in tense lines, but then he sighed and let it go. "So you saw me getting beat on and came down to stop them, huh?" His voice was gravelly and soft.

Alice nodded.

His head tilted down, as if his neck was too tired to hold it up. She hated this. Matthias never showed this side to her even though she knew it was there – he smiled when he was tired, he sang when he was sad. She didn't know what to do with _this_.

"If you see something like that again," he said, "I want you to stay where you are. Stay safe."

Alice had expected that, at least. "Okay," she lied.

He noticed. He always did. His head rose and he looked at her. "I'm always proud of you for doing the right thing, Allie, but you've gotta pick your battles."

"But you didn't pick that!" she gestured unconsciously in the direction of the street. "They picked you, that's not fair."

"I know it's not," he said. "But it's a fact of life. And I'm not ever gonna be the guy who goes out to find people to hit because I'm angry at the world."

Alice said nothing.

Matthias sensed the revolution in her eyes and sighed. "Just… you can't protect anyone if you're dead, Allie." He touched the plaster on her chin. "Remember that."

_Dead._

She felt again the _crack _of her jaw on the curb, the slide of blood across her skin. Cold, she nodded. "Okay."

Matthias nodded slowly, looking exhausted, then curved his bruised mouth in a smile. "I love you, Allie."

"I love you too."

They turned on the radio, because that's what they always did, and Alice's mom and Tom came back to find them half-asleep together on the couch, bruised and listening to the blues.

As Matthias stood up slowly to greet his wife and son, Alice watched through half-slitted eyes and thought: _I'm still going to learn to fight. Just in case I ever need to again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to comment! Have a great rest of your week, guys :)


	14. Letters Across the Ocean (7)

**Fennel Hudson:** **_By the time you read this letter, these words will be those of the past. The me of now is gone._ **

* * *

_October 1__st_ _, 1938  
Vienna  
Dear Steve Rogers,_

_My name is _ _Jil__í. We have talked through Alice in the past but I thought I had better send you a letter now. I apologize if my English is not good. I got your last three letters, but I am not able to pass them on._

_Three weeks ago Alice didn't show up to a meeting she was supposed be at with me, Franz, and some of our friends. This sometimes happens, but the next day I noticed one of her concerts had been cancelled. Though I tried, I couldn't see her for the next week, though I found out that she was in her uncle's house, maybe sick. This morning I got into the house pretending to be a porter while her uncle was out. She is __not_ _sick, and I managed to talk to her for fifteen minutes before a servant questioned me and I had to leave._

_She told me that a week ago, her uncle informed her that he had arranged with Herr Goebbel's propaganda department for her to record a song – I don't know the details, but I can imagine the kind of song it would be. Up until now Alice hasn't challenged her uncle – she is very good at keeping her true feelings hidden. She stays quiet and obedient, but helps us when she can. But apparently to this request she gave a complete 'no'._

_Alice only said that her uncle got 'angry', but there was a bruise on her cheekbone and she got very quiet when she mentioned it. I guess this arrangement would be very good for her uncle's career._

_Alice didn't give in, so apparently she is completely forbidden from leaving the house – he's even assigned a maid to stay with her, so she can't even climb out the window like she usually does. She's refused to perform at all, so he's telling everyone that she's ill._

_Our conversation got cut off there, but she wanted me to write to you to tell you that she's okay, but that she can't contact you right now. I'm very sorry to pass on this news._

_Kind regards,  
_ _Jil__í Červeňák_

* * *

_October 6__th_ _, 1938  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_Thank you for your prompt reply. I still haven't heard from Alice, but another performance has been cancelled._

_You asked if we could call the police – I wish I could, but it is more likely they would arrest us than do anything to help Alice. Her uncle is friends with Himmler, the head of all German police forces, and the police would only be sympathetic with him. We are doing what we can – without saying too much, we have networks in the city, and we are trying to find out more about Alice's situation._

_I do not think it would help if you came to Vienna – you don't speak the language, you might be arrested, and Alice would only worry about you._

_I will send you updates._

_Kindly,  
_ _Jil__í Červeňák_

* * *

Excerpt from '_The Anschluss' _by Wilhelm Steiner (2003), p. 187: 

_In the nine months following the annexation, 130,000 people escaped from Austria legally or illegally. Among these numbers were the intellectuals and creatives of Austria who saw that Nazi Austria was no longer a home for them – whether because they were Jewish or some other form of minority, or because their ideals simply could not survive in that environment. Scientists, composers, film makers, writers, singers, and actors all fled their native home for the more liberal shores of Britain or America. Otto Loewi, the 1936 Nobel laureate in Medicine, was forced to repay his prize money before emigrating out of Austria._

* * *

_October 15__th_ _, 1938  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_It's me. I'm writing this letter in one of the codes we used as children, I really hope you remember it. It's dangerous enough sending this even in code, but… well. I don't really have a logical reason for telling you all this. I just want to hear from you, I suppose._

_I think _ _Jil_ _í explained my sudden silence. I reached my limit when my uncle asked me to record a pro-Nazi song for Herr Goebbels. Even singing in the same room as those people makes my skin crawl, and I've only done it before if there was some indirect way I could help my friends._

_Jil__í also explained my punishment, but after her last letter I managed to escape. My maid/gaoler went to the bathroom and I took the chance to climb out my bedroom window. I ran through the streets of Vienna in my nightclothes, all the way to_ _Jil__í's house. I spent the night there while (I later found out) my uncle had the police search for me. It's lucky I never let on anything about my friends to my uncle._

_I didn't sleep. __Jil__í and I spent the night talking. _ _I was set on not supporting my uncle and his friends a moment longer, which I knew might mean I'd have to leave the country. But Jil__í said I had a choice: she said I could flee back to America and hopefully to the kindness of my friends, or I could stay. I asked how I could possibly stay, and she said I could agree with my uncle and perform the song._

_I can't quite describe the horror I felt when she said that, but I'm sure you'll share the feeling. _ _Jil_ _í explained: I help people here. I haven't given you all the details, but if I were to leave then things would be harder for the people who live here._

_Also, if I were to record this song I would have to go to Berlin to record it._

_Jil_ _í and Franz know some people who are sheltering three men – these men are Jewish, wanted by police for protesting. They'd be sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp to labor and starve, or maybe worse._

_Jil_ _í's idea is that I take on a few servants – say, three – to accompany me on my trip to Berlin (my uncle doesn't enjoy travelling with me anyway, we'll meet in Berlin). My servants don't necessarily have to see me all the way to Berlin once we leave Vienna – the train networks go everywhere, after all._

_Also, _ _Jil_ _í pointed out that by visiting Berlin and performing the song to the German elites, I'll no doubt hear things (as I have been hearing at other parties). There's rumors about a new proposed deportation crackdown in Vienna, and I might be able to find out the truth behind it._

_So this morning I came back to my uncle's house. I told the police I was feverish and ran off in confusion, and once they were gone I told my uncle I'd come to my senses and would record the song. He was so excited he kissed me on the cheek._

_It's very, very, very stupidly dangerous for me to send this to you. But I feel like I need to… justify myself. Somehow. It's selfish. I've been swimming down a morally problematic river for months now, but this feels like I've reached the mouth of the river, leading out to the ocean. I have the chance to step ashore and dry off. But I'm not going to._

_I hope you understand._

_All this time I've been wondering how I can theoretically have all this power as an internationally famous singer, but be almost powerless when it comes to helping my friends. Speaking out against the things happening in Austria and Germany would only have me shunned, or even arrested. But this… this is power that none of my friends have._

_I won't write so much detail about this in the future – I can't, it's simply too dangerous. And I hate that this is spreading over to you. You shouldn't have to worry so much about me. I know I said I wouldn't keep secrets from you, but I have to. And if you do refer to this, please write in some kind of code._

_I'm sorry I didn't choose to come back. I dreamed about it, you know. I got on a boat back to New York, and you and Bucky and Tom were waiting for me at the port. You all looked exactly like you did when I left, even though I know you must be different. I held you all so tight my arms hurt. And then you took my hand and you led me back home._

_I felt so lonely when I woke up. And the only reason that dream isn't real is because of this awful choice I've made. I can't go. But I've decided that when this craziness is over (because it must be over soon – other countries won't let Germany keep doing this forever. Or the Germans will realize that this is a pointless task and will give it up), I'm coming back. I'm coming back to Brooklyn. I'll buy Matthias's tailor shop and get it up and running again, and I'll sing on the radio, and I'll go to the pictures with you every Saturday._

_I'll see you then._

_Love,  
Alice_

* * *

[Translated] Clipping from _The Vienna Times, _"_Radio Programming_," October 1938 

_At seven this evening, listen to the latest tune from Vienna's favorite songbird, the Siren: Es lebe das Vaterland [Long live the Fatherland]._

* * *

_October 18__th_ _, 1938  
Brooklyn  
Alice,_

_What on earth did you write to Steve, troublemaker? He damn near had a panic attack when he read your letter, but when I stole it off him I couldn't goddamn read it because you put it in code and he won't tell me what it says. He says you told him it's secret._

_He's worried out of his mind, Alice. Pacing up and down his apartment, missing work, chewing a hole in his lip. I've half a mind to book myself a ticket to Austria so I can drag you back by your ear and reassure him you're okay._

_You are okay, aren't you? You better be._

_Bucky_

* * *

_October 22nd_ _, 1938  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_Thanks for letting me explain it all to Bucky, he's been trying to coax it out of me since I got your letter and as you know, he can be very annoying. Now he's worried, of course, but it seems he'd been imagining much worse stuff._

_I'm sorry about my last letter. I was panicked when I wrote it, I didn't mean it to come across the way it did. I guess I understand what you wrote about feeling powerless – there's really nothing I can do to help you, is there? I hate that._

_But you said in your last letter that you're safe, and being careful, and I trust you. I understand if you can't tell me stuff. From the sounds of it this was a one-time thing, though, so I'm hoping you'll be able to keep your head down from here on out._

_I don't even know what I'm saying. Just please, be safe. If you have to take risks, be smart about them. I know that's rich coming from me, but the worst that can happen to me is I get clocked in the jaw._

_I didn't respond to the last part of your first letter last time, about your dream. I'm sure that all this with Germany will settle down soon too – this is just a guy on a power trip, and those always come to an end. So when it does, I'll be there at the port waiting for your ship._

_I'll see you then._

_Love,  
Steve._


	15. Chapter Eight

1934

Alice plucked at the men's trousers she wore as she looked around the empty boxing gym, with its wooden floors and three faded punching bags hanging from the high ceiling. Posters advertising long-fought boxing matches hung on the walls, and the yellow lights flickered every half hour or so. She sat on the edge of the gym's boxing ring – which, very confusingly, was actually square – with her shoulders against the rope.

Bucky and Steve wore plain white shirts, like her, and were pulling on boxing gloves. They'd put Alice's on for her like a child. She looked down and knocked her padded knuckles together.

"Alright," Bucky said as he closed the laces with his teeth. "On your feet, pupil."

Alice got to her feet.

Bucky gestured to Steve. "Steve, go on and show her how to throw a punch."

Steve blinked, started, and then cautiously approached Alice as if worried she might start punching him first. Alice just stood with her gloved hands hanging by her sides.

"Okay, so…" Steve held up his hands in a fighting stance, and Alice copied him. "Scoot your feet a bit further apart. Keep your knees bent a bit. Yeah, that's right." Steve turned and faced off against the hanging punching bag, and Alice came over to mirror him. "Then you point your chest at what you want to punch, push off your back foot and then punch _through _the bag."

"I think you might be underestimating my strength," Alice said wryly, even as she slowly mimicked Steve's slow movements.

"It's more a visualization thing." Steve showed the slow technique once more, then looked over his shoulder at Bucky. Bucky nodded and held up his bulky boxing glove in a thumbs up. Steve turned back to Alice, who frowned slightly at the bag as she slowly pushed her hand out, then drew it back.

"Alright, give it a go," Steve said.

Alice drew her fists back to their original position, eyed the bag, then threw a surprisingly quick punch that made the bag shiver. She drew her hand back then looked over to Steve and Bucky.

"That was good," Steve said. He glanced at Bucky again, then back. "You need to protect your face with your other fist though."

"Oh right, like a boxer." She'd seen Bucky's boxing matches from time to time.

She practiced a few more punches, once making the bag actually sway a little, before Bucky came in closer and clapped a glove on her shoulder.

"That was good," he said. "Now, Steve, what did I say was _more _important than learning how to throw a punch?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Learning how to dodge one."

"Great!" Bucky said brightly. He gestured to the ring. "Let's get started. Alice, just stay down here for a minute."

Alice watched the two of them climb onto the raised ring (square) and duck under the ropes, and came over to rest her elbows on the rope and watch them. They faced off in the center with raised fists. Steve had a wary, resigned look on his face.

Bucky turned to Alice. "You just watch for now." Then he turned back to Steve, shouted "Begin!" and dove after the smaller blonde boy. Steve leaped away.

Alice watched with her chin propped on a boxing glove as Bucky chased Steve around the ring for a few minutes, swinging and trying to clip him. Steve ducked and fell gracelessly and went red, and it was very clear that his every instinct told him to stop running and fight back, but they'd clearly done this before and he stuck to the rules. The sounds of skin skidding on the boxing ring floor, Steve's panting and the _swish _of Bucky's fists filled the air.

Bucky kept hollering "know your enemy!" and "anticipate!", and Steve looked like he wanted to sock him in the jaw.

Finally Bucky held up his hand, his chest heaving, and nodded at Steve. "Good job, punk. You almost got away from me that time."

"Jerk," Steve replied sourly. But when he ducked under the ropes Alice saw him looking pleased.

Bucky waved to Alice. "Your turn."

She climbed up, and Steve held the ropes for her. He was red and breathless and avoided her gaze. Once she'd risen to her feet in the ring, she faced Bucky.

"You ready?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

She held up her fists.

His eyes glinted. "Begin!"

Bucky rushed for her. Alice dodged aside, eyes on his face, and then he whirled around and swung at her.

Alice didn't move an inch.

The punch stopped an inch away from her head. Alice didn't flinch.

For a moment Alice and Bucky just stared at each other, one looking chagrined and the other with slow smile creeping up her face.

"Do I win?" she asked.

He pulled his fist away and wiped his forehead. "There's no _winning_, you're meant to dodge."

"Why?"

"So you don't get _punched_."

Steve watched them with his elbows on the rope.

"I didn't get punched," Alice pointed out. "I knew you wouldn't hit me."

Bucky scowled at her. "But anyone else _would_."

"Guess I just know my enemy," she smiled.

Steve snorted, and Bucky scowled again. After a few moments of glowering he looked down to tighten his gloves. "Alright, now I'm really going to hit you."

Alice believed him.

They went through the rigmarole of ducking and chasing and catching punches, and after five minutes sweat poured down Alice's face and her breath came sharp. She finally held up her arms in defeat, and Bucky jabbed her lightly in the ribs as revenge. She doubled over in a burst of surprise and laughter as Steve smiled on.

"You're not half bad, troublemaker," Bucky said. "I'll keep teaching you both once per week if you make me a promise."

Alice glanced up, still doubled over. "What's that?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Promise me you won't use these new skills for evil."

Steve snorted again, and Alice just rolled her eyes. "I promise, Bucky."

"Swell. Now let's get out of here, I stink and I'm worried you're about to keel over."

* * *

[Translated] Excerpt from '_A History of the Roman Empire', _Sallust (c. 40BC)

_Lentorius served as a musician in Spain when T. Didius was governor there. He composed and performed his own music, and received many accolades. His fame spread across the region, and he performed in front of weeping and amazed crowds, but this has not been well recorded, firstly because of his humble birth and secondly because historians were ill-disposed towards him. In his middle age a high-born woman spurned Lentorius and he leaped to his death from the cliffs of Ronda, where his body was lost to the sea. Such is the tragedy of Lentorius, and the wickedness of women._

* * *

In addition to her now weekly avoiding-a-punch lessons, the priest at their church started teaching Alice and Steve how to shoot a gun. He was a veteran and something of an enthusiast, despite the strange contradiction, and on Saturdays before choir practice they'd set up in the church yard with his old 1910 Browning and a target. He'd teach them how to hold it safely, what each part was and how it worked, how to aim, and how to keep their eyes open as they fired.

Brooklyn wasn't the safest of neighborhoods, and anyone who did come asking about the gunshots just said 'oh, good', and wandered off again.

Bucky came to their shooting practice a couple of times. The priest cocked an eyebrow at him once he'd fired all his rounds, and said "Keep it up, son. You're a fair hand at that."

The cut under Alice's chin began to fade into a scar. You couldn't usually see it in the shadow of her chin. But she knew it was there.

A few weeks before the end of the year, a radio producer called Alice at the tenement building's shared phone and invited her to sing on air as part of their Christmas programming. It was a step up from amateur hour, he explained, an exhibit of local rising talent to showcase the city.

Alice said yes so fast she'd barely had time to form the word in her mind before it was out her mouth.

Matthias couldn't go with her. They all knew why, though none of them voiced it, they just made arrangements for her mom to accompany her to the studio. Her heart panged when she walked out of the house leaving Matthias on the couch with Tom, already tuned into the radio.

The radio station itself was a grand imposing building with marble floors and impeccably dressed secretaries, and Alice tried not to seem too wide-eyed as she and her mom were escorted into an elevator, through busy halls, and toward the studio. The people around them were busy but kind enough, pressing glasses of water into their hands.

Then, very quickly, Alice was whisked away from her mom and into the studio itself. It was a low-ceilinged room that felt close, and quiet. Like the world had been told to _hush. _A single microphone stand stood on thick carpet in the center of the room, with wires trailing to a desk manned by two operators wearing headsets.

The radio host sat with another microphone at the other end of the room, and he glanced up as a producer ushered Alice towards the microphone in the center. His hair was slicked back and he wore a very fine suit – Alice wondered why he bothered, given no one would know. He noticed her gaze and flashed a quick smile.

One of the operators pointed to the host and he came to life: "Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, to 2XG's 'Christmastime in New York' talent hour!" His eyes skimmed across his notes. "Next up we have a lovely young lady by the name of Alice Moser, who's been gracing Brooklyn's microphones. How are you this afternoon, Alice?" His eyes rose to her.

Alice, who had been standing dumbly in front of the microphone with her hands limp by her sides, tried not to let the sick twisting of her guts show in her voice: "I'm well, thank you Mr Weller. Excited to be here."

"And we're excited to have you! Now how old are you?"

"Sixteen," Alice said, truthful for once.

"Only sixteen, and already so talented," the host said congenially. "Why don't you give us a song or two?"

"I'd love to." The confident part of her, the one that took over when she was lying or trying to get something, had been speaking so far. But then the music started up and she had to change once more.

She'd practiced her two songs (a carol and a jazzy blues song) non stop these past two weeks, so often that Steve and Bucky knew all the words as well. And the room she found herself in wasn't too imposing – just a handful of men she didn't know, thick carpet under her feet, and a little sunlight filtering through a well-glazed window.

But then her eyes zeroed in on the microphone in front of her. The receiver itself was a small metal circle surrounded by a larger one, a little brassy from use. She'd sung into dozens of microphones like it before. But her eyes followed the thin wire down from the metal circle, down the stand, and across the carpet to the operator's desk. That wire would carry her voice away and send it out on invisible waves through the air, to be snatched up by hundreds, thousands of radio sets across the city. It would be _her _voice in peoples' kitchens and dining rooms, her voice turned down low in someone's bedroom. She'd never see their faces, but they would hear her.

Alice's heart beat so loud she was sure it would be picked up by the microphone. She saw the host share an uneasy glance with the producer out of the corner of her eye.

She swallowed.

Steve, who'd only ever heard her over the radio through crackly dots and dashes, would now hear her as clearly as if she were singing into his ear.

The music was a bar away from where she was supposed to come in.

_Ulysses._

Alice drew in a breath and sang.

Time flowed strangely over the next seven minutes – it dripped and gurgled, then raced along as if the world would start blurring before Alice's eyes. As the words poured out of her, Alice felt a rush of warmth flow through her. It was heady, like the time she'd tried the Paris Side Cars at the speakeasy.

She looked away from the microphone only once, to see the host watching her with a smile.

When her last song came to an end she turned around, thinking the producer had come up behind her, but there was no one there. She turned back around to see him. He smiled and nodded at her.

"Alice Moser, thank you very much!" cried the host. "Just spectacular, we hope to hear more from you in the future."

"Thank you for having me," she said quietly. Then her feet were moving over the thick carpet, the door was opening, and she was out in the hall again.

Her mom was waiting for her with tears in her eyes. "You were fantastic, _Liebling_," she breathed as she reeled Alice in for a tight hug. "What a wonderful Christmas present."

"_Danke, mama._"

"That was just wonderful!" came a voice from behind them. Alice turned to smile at the producer just as he followed her out of the studio. "Just spectacular." He reached into his back pocket, took out a card and pressed it into her still-tingling hands. "I'd like to get you on the air more often, Ms Moser. Give me a call after the New Year, I'll see if we can't slot you in somewhere. Sound good?"

"That sounds great," Alice breathed. Her mom squeezed her shoulder in silent excitement.

* * *

Clipping from _The Daily Register, _'_Radio Programming', _December 1934:

_… _ _2XG's Christmas 'Christmastime in New York' was a vibrant success, showcasing talent from the 73 year old opera singer Carla Marley, to upcoming voices like sixteen year old Brooklyn resident Alice Moser. There's been an excess of positive feedback from listeners about that one. Next listeners tuned into the new radio drama…_

* * *

When Alice trudged up the tenement stairs and back to the apartment behind her mom, she was already preparing to get changed and then run straight to Steve's house. After a big performance she always felt somehow more present in her body, as if the world made _sense_, and she wanted to share that with him.

But then her mom opened the door for her and a wall of sound flooded out of it. Alice flinched back, but then the sounds resolved themselves into… applause. And cheers.

A veritable crowd of people stood just inside, squashed into the small apartment: Matthias with Tom sitting on his shoulders, most of Matthias's family from Harlem, their very best friends from church, Edith and Finn, and right up the front: Steve, Bucky, and their families.

They all beamed and cheered and exclaimed that she'd been _brilliant_. Alice's hands flew to her mouth to cover her sudden, cheek-splitting smile.

"Come on in, superstar!" Matthias called. "You gotta be hungry after singing to all of New York City."

"We already ate a lot of the food, but we'll scrounge something up for you," Bucky added. Steve rolled his eyes at him and then turned to face Alice with that silent, half-smile that he rarely showed the world.

Still beaming, Alice let her mom gently push her into the jam-packed apartment and into the arms of the people who loved her.

* * *

Alice spent Christmas and New Years with her family, with a small break in between to travel up to Harlem to get more tea for Steve, who had come down with sinusitis around Boxing Day. Steve's mom let her in to see him for a bit this time: he did his best to sit up in bed and talk to her, but she could see how _tired _he was.

For all that Steve had the strongest will she knew, she too easily forgot how hard it was for his body to keep going. His small chest rose and fell shallowly under the bedsheets and when he coughed it seemed to shake his very core. Alice left disturbed and scared, and stayed that way until three days later when a familiar crackle came over the radio: _Ulysses._

While Steve was sick, Bucky and Alice visited him when his mom reckoned he was strong enough, and when he wasn't they escaped from the cold into soda fountains and traded jokes and insults over cups of coffee. They stole newspapers off adjoining tables, and Bucky would read aloud the articles and make sarcastic commentary about them as Alice filled out the crosswords. Bucky was as easy as breathing for Alice - he had a natural charm for getting others to let down their guard, and he didn't make Alice nervous sometimes in the way that Steve did. Bucky, for his part (though he would never admit it) enjoyed Alice's blank-faced jokes and the strange, hopeful and cynical take she had on the world.

Alice got called in to the radio station a few more times after that Christmastime special – usually for their amateur hour, but once for another showcase of local talent. The microphone stand in the studio still gave her the jitters. Sometimes singing into it felt like speaking to another universe.

One morning, Alice walked out from the bathroom into the living room just as Matthias got up with a huff to change the radio station. Alice caught the presenter's voice just before the station changed and recognized it as Charles Coughlin.

"What's the matter?" she asked Matthias as she went to go get some water. "I thought you liked his program."

"I did like him," Matthias replied as he returned to the couch and his paper. "But recently he's been going on about the _Zionists_." He made air quotes with a knowing look, then rolled his eyes and flipped his paper open again. "Knew there had to be a catch."

Alice cast a look at the radio over her shoulder. "Huh."

* * *

Excerpt from "_Nazis on the Radio_" by Edward Marlin, p. 73

_Roman Catholic Charles Coughlin, one of the decade's most prominent radio presenters, had an incredibly wide-spread and significant audience, with some historians estimating that his show reached as many as thirty million people a week. Coughlin became explicitly anti-semitic in the latter half of the 1930s. _ _Following Kristallnacht in Germany in 1938, Coughlin stated "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted." This lead to the cancellation of his radio show in New York, which prompted an anti-semitic rally by his followers. It has since been uncovered that at the time of broadcast, Coughlin was being indirectly funded by Nazi Germany._

* * *

1935

As if they'd passed some milestone by making it another year, Alice, Edith, and some of their other girlfriends started going out to dance halls. Alice had been to a few to sing or to stand on the side while Matthias's band performed, but she'd never been to one just to _dance _before. Dancing didn't come naturally to her, but Edith danced like she'd been doing it since she was born, and quickly taught Alice the steps. Alice learned the lindy hop, the foxtrot, and the jive, and danced them with her friends or with particularly bold teenage boys who moseyed up to her with a smile. She was always home by her 9pm curfew.

Bucky was there sometimes, and even more rarely Steve – it was strange seeing them at the dance hall, especially since they'd come in different groups, and the air was always strange when they spoke under the glittering lights. Maybe it was because Alice felt like she was playing the part of a young woman dancing out on the town, rather than _being _that young woman. Still, it was fun to dress up at Edith's; they listened to the radio as they ironed their hair into curls and tried to apply lipstick.

Bucky, meanwhile, was going through a transformation of his own. He was nearly eighteen, tall and broad shouldered with a bright smile and charm that would win over a nun. He was a young man who'd recently figured out the effect he had on young women, and wielded his powers wherever he could.

And Alice was a young woman now, with a brassiere and heeled shoes and even lipstick when she liked, and all of a sudden Bucky _realized _that.

One Friday night at the dance hall, he turned his powers on Alice while she got a drink during the samba. She had a blue dress with a bow on the back, and her short-cut hair was twisted fashionably against the side of her head. Bucky slid up beside her, batted his eyelashes and drawled "Hey, Al, d'you want to go to the pictures with me?"

Alice turned wide eyes on him. This wasn't his normal 'hey, wanna see a film?' It had _intent_.

"Alright," she agreed. "Tomorrow?"

"Sounds good to me," he said with a sweet smile, then melted away again.

Unbeknownst to Alice, Bucky informed Steve about the scheduled date when he saw him after the dance that evening. Steve tensed up, surprised and a little… he didn't know _how _he felt, but when Bucky asked if it was alright, he just nodded.

He barely slept that night. He kept getting out of bed, intending to go to the radio in the living room and… he'd get back into bed again. He didn't _understand._

The next evening Bucky fetched Alice from out the front of the tailor shop and they walked to the theater, talking about the weather. They'd both dressed up. Bucky bought Alice her ticket, her popcorn, and her drink; the perfect gentleman. They saw _Anna Karenina._

Halfway through the film Bucky reached his arm up and over, behind Alice's shoulders.

"No thank you," she said clearly.

The arm retracted. Alice offered him popcorn, and he ate it meekly.

They walked outside the cinema at the end of the film, and in the crisp late-winter air Alice turned to look Bucky in the eye.

"Bucky," she said. "If you ever try to make a move on me again, I will poison your popcorn."

He believed her. "Yeah, alright."

After that, Bucky figured there were plenty enough girls in Brooklyn for him to charm without worrying about Alice and her tricks. She was a troublemaker, after all. And he'd mostly asked her on the date to test a long-standing theory of his.

When Bucky told Steve, Steve wondered at the rush of relief he felt. But not for long – that was a dangerous road. Bucky watched Steve's face with an amused quirk to his brow. _Theory: confirmed._

Steve wondered if Alice would poison _his _popcorn.

He thought, against his own better judgement, that it'd probably be worth it.

* * *

Excerpt of interview with Rosemary Bridges, Brooklyn Senior High Alumnus (1994):

_Mrs Bridges: "To be honest, I mostly remember Bucky Barnes – Sergeant Bucky Barnes, he became later, god rest his soul. He was the flirt of the neighborhood, dated my cousin for a couple of weeks. They went through school a few years before I did, so I only knew them through, you know… people I knew. I remember that Bucky Barnes, though._

_Though don't mistake me! He wasn't ever cruel, was he. Just couldn't fix on one girl for long before he decided he liked the look of someone else. And I figure he wasn't a disloyal person, what with following Captain Rogers into the war."_

_Interviewer: "And what do you remember of Steve Rogers?"_

_Mrs Bridges: "Oh! Not much, not much at all. I knew there was some talk about the neighborhood when his mother died, but I never met him. He didn't have the way of charming and making friends that Barnes did. Never even saw him. No one talked about him really, save for the occasional mention of him being beat up somewhere. I never… I never thought about him once until we all found out that Captain America was none other than little Steve Rogers from Brooklyn, and he'd died to save us all."_

_[Pause]_

_Interviewer: "Perhaps we'll take a break there."_

* * *

In March, the simmering tensions in Harlem boiled over into outright rioting after the police arrested a shoplifter. Alice stayed glued to the radio along with the rest of her family, worried about Matthias's relatives who lived and worked in Harlem. It turned out that even though they lived right in the middle of the neighborhood, their business was spared.

That afternoon in the comic book store, Alice talked about it with Bucky and Steve as they leafed through comics with no intention of buying them.

"You ain't scared to go back?" Bucky asked. "Three people died, Al."

Alice shook her head. "They just did what Steve would've done in their position." Steve looked over, his eyebrows raised. "They saw something that wasn't right, and they acted. I'm not saying it was right, but I get it."

Steve's brows furrowed. "I wouldn't have thrown a rock."

Bucky and Alice turned to stare flatly at him, and his shoulders bunched around his ears.

"Yeah, alright."

Alice's singing slowly crept toward something _tangible. _She was called back to the radio station for a fifteen minute section a week before school cut out for the summer break, and it got mentioned in the paper. She'd never been formally trained save for choir so she focused harder than ever on control, pitch, volume. She was still very much an amateur, but one of the station producers said that by building up a portfolio like this she had a shot of getting a scholarship to one of the New York music schools.

The very idea of it made Alice's guts twist so hard that she thought she would be sick, she wanted it so much. Part of her privately hoped she'd be able to go to a general college so she could study math and languages as well, but she knew that was an even unlikelier dream than singing.

That summer was a hot, dry one – out in the Midwest, the dust bowl storms sent families fleeing to the coast for better lives. New Yorkers trudged down baking streets that stunk of hot trash, seeking out cool shade. Alice, Steve, and Bucky hid from the sun in the back of the tailor shop, or at soda fountains when they could afford it. Steve and Alice were busy studying – the last year of high school was no joke.

Once or twice they made the trip to Coney Island beach, which Bucky strutted like a man straight out of the fashion newspapers. The beach thronged with people; sand sticking to bare flesh and the air thick with sea salt and oil. Seagulls cawed over the babble of chattering adults and squealing kids.

Steve crossed his arms over his rattly birdcage of a chest and very pointedly did not look at Alice, whose polka-dotted swimsuit extended just over the tops of her pale thighs and left little to the imagination. Alice was content to sit beside him on the sand and watch people through half-slitted eyes under her wide-brimmed hat. She watched Steve push his toes into the sand with fascination that surprised her.

They all got sunburnt and spent the next day laying cold, wet cloths on their bare skin as they complained.

Toward the end of the summer break, Alice spent every penny in her savings on three tickets to see a performance at the Roseland Ballroom. She'd grown up on the performer, thanks to Matthias's avid interest, and he'd just returned from a tour of Europe to record an album in New York.

When she gave the other two tickets to Steve and Bucky they both insisted on paying her back, which she wouldn't hear of. But she wouldn't hear of them not coming with her either.

So on Friday night the three of them dressed up as best they could (Alice borrowed a dress from her mom), took the train into Manhattan and walked into the tall brick building with _ROSELAND _writ large in lights on the outside.

The ballroom was packed by the time they got there, and the band was already on stage. It was a grand room with sweeping ceilings draped in shimmering fabric, neatly-dressed hostesses circulating with trays of drinks, and the whole crowd tapping their heels to the music. There were plenty of other teenagers around, so Alice, Steve, and Bucky easily melted into the crowd.

Alice _loved _seeing bands perform – it felt so different to the scratchy, distant stuff on the radio. She loved seeing a drummer bring down his hand and hearing the resulting beat ripple across the room. She loved the way the tunes always changed slightly, loved the crowd watching and singing along.

What she didn't love, she realized after getting elbowed in the head, was dancing.

She and Steve ended up sitting together at the side of the ballroom on a wooden bench, watching the band. Alice rested her already sore feet and Steve caught his breath.

Alice liked watching the crowd dance in tune to the music, but after a few moments she ended up listening with her eyes closed – she knew she wasn't likely to hear this band again in real life, so she wanted to savor each clear note and warbling lyric. Trumpets sang out clear and brassy.

When Alice opened her eyes again, Steve was looking at her. He blushed and glanced away.

Alice looked out at the bobbing heads and partners twisting in and out from each other in the crowd. The band stood above them all on the stage, wearing bowties and laughing as they played.

"Do you think you'll draw this?" she asked Steve.

He followed her gaze, then looked back to her. "I think I'll have to." He leaned back against the wall. "What about you? Feeling inspired?"

She looked up at the singer. "A little jealous, actually. I want to be up there."

"You will, one day."

Alice glanced at him. "You're very certain."

"Call it a gut feeling."

She laughed.

Steve jerked his chin at the stage, where the singer had just picked up a trumpet and began to play. "So who is this guy again?"

Alice cast him an askance glance. "Steve. You know who Louis Armstrong is."

He shrugged. "I mean, kinda." He did. He wanted to hear her tell him.

Alice pushed her hair behind her ears. "Wow, alright. He started out in New Orleans, he basically started the soloist trend in trumpeting – but he's also a singer, and a composer, and I've wanted to see him _forever _because I keep hearing he's got this incredible presence on stage…" Steve nodded seriously as she explained each stage of Armstrong's career so far to him, occasionally glancing to the stage as if to confirm what she said. She was right, of course – the man was magnetic up there, all charisma and charm. Reminded him of Bucky.

"People say he's reaching the end of his career now, but Matthias reckons he's going to make a comeback. He's one of the most talented trumpeters out there and nobody can solo like him. But that's not why I like him."

On stage, Armstrong lowered his trumpet and turned to the microphone again to sing the lyrics to _Stardust_.

Steve turned to Alice with a knowing look. She smiled.

He understood why she liked this fella so much – Steve had heard countless versions of this song but this guy made it anew; his voice was low, smoky, an unusual sound that made you want to close your eyes and listen.

The music prickled over Steve – it made him feel bold, a different person. A person who might lean in closer to Alice to share the space between them.

"Hey!" Steve opened his eyes at the sound of Bucky's voice to see his friend standing with his hands on his hips as he looked down at him. "Thought this was a ballroom, not a lounge. Come and dance, you humbugs."

He turned around before they could disagree, and with a resigned glance at each other Alice and Steve stood to follow him into the crowd. Bucky had made himself at home in a large group of teenagers. None of them were dancing as pairs, just stepping and turning in a group in time to the music.

Steve tried to copy them. He uncomfortably stepped from side to side, shoulders moving in time with the beat (he hoped), then shied back when he accidentally elbowed Alice. She flashed him a forgiving smile and then rolled her eyes as Bucky whirled her in a spin before letting her go. Bucky had no issues navigating the flowing, twisting bodies in the crowd – every time Steve spotted him he was dancing with someone new.

Steve sighed. This really wasn't his scene.

On stage, Louis Armstrong sang _Oh my poor Nelly Gray, they have taken you away, and I never see my darling anymore, oh babe._

Alice felt Steve elbow her twice more until she finally let out a small laugh, took his elbow in her hand and began to guide him. Her fingers brushed his bare skin, warm and soft with fine blonde hair, and an electric prickle went down her spine.

She didn't look at him for another three minutes. But she didn't let go of his arm.

Towards the end of the night, Steve was once again sitting on the wooden bench by the wall when Bucky fell into the seat beside him. Alice had weaved her way to the front of the audience – he could just see her pale blonde head, tilted backward so she looked up into the band's faces.

Bucky wiped his forehead. "I dunno if I can give you any good advice here, pal."

Steve glanced at him. "What?"

Bucky waved a hand. "Well, I always kinda thought I'd be able to give you a few pointers when the time came for you to start chasing ladies. But then," he said significantly, "you went and picked the most complicated one of the lot."

Steve colored. "I-"

"Oh are you going to try to deny it?" Bucky's eyebrows rose in an amused look. "This I'd like to hear."

Steve fell silent, chagrined.

After a few moments of silence between them as Armstrong's trumpet pealed out brightly, Bucky reached over to clap Steve's skinny shoulder. "For what it's worth, I think she likes ya too."

His head jerked up. "You think?"

Bucky shrugged. "I mean, as much as anyone can tell what's going on in that head." They both looked over at Alice again as she swayed, almost on her tiptoes.

"I don't want anything to change," Steve said carefully. He'd seen it happen at school: old friends who discovered new parts of themselves and came together, then it all ended in flames.

Bucky eyed him. "Yeah, you do."

The song ended and Alice slipped out of the crowd again, making her way toward the wooden bench. Her fine hair played around her face and her green eyes focused right on him, and Steve's heart shot into his mouth. _Yes, I do._

"What're you two talking about?" she asked as she dropped into the seat on Steve's other side. She was alive and vibrant from the music.

"Steve's love life," Bucky said casually. Steve's ears burned and he turned to glare at Bucky. He missed the look on Alice's face when she said:

"Oh? Any prospects?"

"Some," Bucky half-smiled. "He's an eligible bachelor, our man here."

Alice just nodded, unreadable.

Bucky continued: "I was thinking about setting him up with your friend Edith."

Steve scowled and tried to elbow Bucky, but the taller boy dodged it without glancing away from Alice.

Alice cocked her head. "She's actually hoping Finn Neri will ask her out."

"Oh really?"

She nodded with a quick smile. Bucky leaned back and tapped a finger to his chin.

"Well how about Holly Barker? She's in your art class, right Steve?"

Furious, Steve nodded silently.

Alice just looked on with cool green eyes. "Holly Barker's nice." Someone in the crowd called her name, one of her many acquaintances no doubt, and she rose to her feet again. When she'd walked out of hearing range again Steve turned on Bucky.

"What are you doing?"

"Making her jealous!" Bucky said, as if it was obvious. "It'll work like a charm, trust me."

"No it _won't_," he said. "And no way Holly Barker wants to go on a date with me."

Bucky raised his eyebrows. "I think you'd be surprised, Steve."

* * *

To his and everyone else's surprise, Steve did end up asking Holly Barker if she wanted to go on a date. She was a tall, willowy girl with auburn hair and a gap-toothed smile, who drew sketches of all the birds she saw in Brooklyn's streets and quietly complimented Steve's sketches when she walked past.

He'd had Bucky coach him through what to say and he still stumbled on every second word. When he fell silent, his cheeks burning and feeling smaller than an ant, Holly Barker smiled.

"I'd love to."

"What?"

"I said sure. It sounds fun."

Steve had not really planned for a _yes_ but he managed to school his utter amazement just long enough to organize a time, and then walked away scratching his neck.

Bucky cheered like the Dodgers had won the World Series when he found out. Alice showed up at that moment and asked what all the fuss was about. Steve could not seem to bring himself to speak, so Bucky said:

"Steve here has scored himself a date with Holly Barker."

"Oh," Alice said. "Congratulations, Steve. She's nice."

An inkling of suspicion entered Steve's head at that. He knew Alice, and he knew that this impassive façade meant _nothing_. She could be feeling anything under that guileless expression: happiness, frustration, true neutrality. Maybe even jealousy.

He rolled his eyes at himself and hunkered down to listen to Bucky crow. Trying to figure out what was going on in Alice's head was a losing battle.

Come Saturday, Steve and Holly Barker went to the soda fountain with the best jukebox. They each had a coke, and aside from Steve's stumbling they got along pretty well. He didn't remember stammering like this around Alice back when they'd met. Maybe he'd just forgotten. Or maybe things were different now, since they were older.

_Stop thinking about Alice._ He knew enough about girls to know that they probably didn't like it if you didn't pay attention to them.

At the end of the date Steve didn't know what to do so he just waved, like an idiot, said "bye" and scurried away.

He trudged back home with his hands in his pockets and a furrow on his brow.

He looked up a few buildings away to see –

_Alice. _She sat on the stoop of his tenement building in a brown tartan dress and sweater, her chin-length hair shining in the sun as she read a book on her lap.

Steve's heart swelled in his chest – was she here because of the date? Did Bucky's plan work?

He strode a bit quicker once he'd seen her, and soon she was looking up from her book and smiling at his approach.

"Hey!" she said. "I found a new book of ciphers at the library and I there's one I wanted to show you for the radio. Want to see?"

_Oh. _Normal stuff. It wasn't unusual for them to wait outside each other's houses, he should have known. Steve schooled his look of disappointment and nodded. "Sure."

They climbed the creaky stairs up to his and his mom's apartment, and Alice kicked off her shoes by habit just inside the door and put them in their usual place. His mom was out at the hospital. They moved to the kitchen table and began poring over the new book.

The book was complicated; it focused on asymmetric key algorithms, which used a 'public' key for any sender to encrypt a message, and a 'private' key for only the intended receiver to decrypt it.

While they were in the middle of it, as Steve's brow was twisted in confusion and he mouthed letters and numbers while scribbling on notepaper, Alice half-turned her head toward him and said:

"How was your date, by the way?"

It almost didn't startle him. "You remembered that was today?"

She shrugged by way of an answer.

He still remembered when she went on those dates with Finn Neri, and with Bucky. He'd been acutely aware of when those dates had been. He'd sat, restless, unable to do anything. Not even draw.

"It went okay," Steve said as he tried out the 'private' key Alice had given him. "I was weird at the end."

"Weird how?"

"I just _waved _at her. Like she was another friend or something. I bet Bucky doesn't wave at the end of his dates."

"Well Bucky never ends up dating the same person for long. Maybe friends first is the way to go." Alice leaned forward, her fringe obscuring her face as she turned a page in the book. "Do you think you'll see her again?"

"We didn't talk about it," Steve realized. "Maybe. I don't know."

"Hm."

After a few moments Steve turned back to the code as well, because that was making his brain hurt less than this conversation.

* * *

** _~ Your music lilts on the breeze to me,  
you're a distant spark, a memory. ~_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's excited for the holidays? I sure am, despite the fact that I've planned a Christmas lesson for my students that involves me having to listen to All I Want For Christmas Is You approximately a million times over the next week. I'm heading back to the Siren playlist to wash that song out of my eardrums.


	16. Letters Across the Ocean (8)

**Virginia Woolf: ** ** _You have a touch in letter writing that is beyond me. Something unexpected, like coming round a corner in a rose garden and finding it still daylight._ **

* * *

_November 6__th_ _, 1938  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_I'm glad things are more or less back to normal, but I noticed you've hardly mentioned your latest concerts or anything to do with your uncle. I know you said you couldn't tell me much, but at least tell me everything's alright? You're not doing anything big, are you?_

_Sorry for the short letter, it's winter so I am, of course, sick again. Bucky's just threatened to knock me out if I don't go to sleep now, so good night I guess._

_Yours,  
Steve_

* * *

_November 8__th_ _, 1938  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_You don't need to worry, I'm not writing about all that because I despise doing it and don't want to think about it. As for 'doing anything big', there's nothing on that front. Just keeping people fed._

_Sorry you're not feeling well – remember to drink that tea I sent you for your birthday! It'll help._

_I'll keep my letter short as well, because I'm a little concerned. Yesterday a Jewish boy living in Paris shot a German diplomat. Today the German government banned all Jewish children from schools, banned all Jewish cultural activities, and stopped publication of Jewish newspapers. They've also been forbidden from owning weapons. The police in Vienna are antsier than usual, the city is simmering, and I want to head out to check on _ _Jil__í and Franz._

_Hopefully it'll all blow over and the government will roll back the bans soon – I don't know how they can just ban all that and pretend that the people living here don't exist._

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

[Translated] Excerpt from telegram to police units from Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller, November 9 1938: 

_In shortest order, actions against Jews and especially their synagogues will take place in all of Germany. These are not to be interfered with._

* * *

_November 11th_ _, 1938  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_I'm okay. It seems I'm always reassuring you of that these days, but this… I want to make sure you know I wasn't hurt the other day._

_Everything you asked is true. The German diplomat who got shot died two days ago, and the entire country just _ _exploded._

_I'd checked on _ _Jilí and Franz the day before. They were scared (though they tried to hide it), but safe. But then on the evening of the 9__th_ _, when I was at home writing a song, I realized I could hear the sounds of smashing glass._

_At about the same time my uncle got a phone call. He came into my room and told me I wasn't to leave the house – he got the maid to watch me again – before he left for who knows where. I can only imagine the worst._

_I don't have the best view from my room, but the noise of the city outside was terrifying: smashing glass, yelling, sirens. I thought maybe a fight had broken out, except the sound was coming from _ _ everywhere. _ _ I asked the maid to fetch me a drink, then climbed out the window._

_I can hardly describe it, Steve. It wasn't a fight. All over Vienna, groups of men were running through the streets destroying things. As I climbed down to the street I saw a group of them run up to a storefront, smash the windows in, then climb in to loot the place. I took off in the other direction to Jilí and Franz's house._

_I got three blocks before I realized that the targets of the looting were exclusively Jewish-owned properties. The men were smashing in windows, tearing apart furniture and paintings, setting fire to houses. Dusk had fallen, so the orange glow flickered in the sky. I could hear screaming. One street away from Jilí's house I ran past a synagogue with flames licking up the walls. I saw the fire department at the end of the street and actually sighed in relief, but when I got closer I realized they were just sitting there, watching the building go up in smoke. I didn't know what to do, Steve. I just kept running._

_I found Jilí and Franz at their house – thank god no one had come there yet – with some of their friends. I told them to get dressed and come with me._

_I won't tell you too much about our trip through the city. I've never been so scared in my life, with the groups of men running by us and the screams and shouts in the air. One group stopped us, but when they saw me they either recognized me or figured I couldn't be Jewish, because we were allowed to go on our way. We picked up some people on the way – three teenage girls who'd been split up from their parents, an elderly couple who'd been beaten, and a young family._

_I saw people whose faces I recognized smashing windows and setting fire to buildings. I saw others retreating to their homes with tears on their faces. The air tasted like smoke, and firelight glinted off the smashed glass on the street, making it look like a river of flames._

_I fell once, and landed hands-first in the broken glass. I've gotten it all out, but I'm writing with bandage-swaddled hands now. Feeling the glass dig into my skin that night made it all suddenly, startlingly real._

_I got back up. I got our small group of terrified people to the Academy of Music. I've got a key for one of the practice rooms, so we slipped in a side entrance and hid in there overnight. I don't think anyone slept._

_The next morning a friend found us and gave us the all clear. I walked Franz and Jilí back to their house, which thankfully hadn't been touched. They've been living quietly. But the evidence of what had happened the night before was written throughout the city. It still is. Even looking out the window now, I can see graffiti scrawled across buildings and boarded-up windows. The synagogue three blocks away is a burnt-out shell. People walk the streets like they're afraid of their own shadows._

_I didn't realize until that morning that the violence we'd seen in Vienna had been echoed everywhere throughout Austria, Germany, and the Sudetenland. It was sanctioned by the German government, started by the police, and continued by citizens._

_27 people were murdered in Austria. Countless more were arrested and sent away to who knows where. What's more, the government fined the Jewish community._

_I'm safe. But I am very, very scared, Steve. I knew one of the men who died – he was a friend of a friend, living a few suburbs away. It could have been Franz._

_My only consolation is that I'm not the only one who's scared. More people than ever are criticizing what happened. Those in government are all for it, of course, but its as if those who agreed with them have finally realized where all this hatred leads. And they're terrified of it. The priest at the catholic church down the street openly criticized the looters._

_So out of that night I've taken some hope. I know other countries are already condemning it, so maybe this is enough. Maybe this will be the turning point, the darkest day._

_Until then, I'm going to be more protective than ever of my friends._

_My uncle never noticed that I was gone. He arrived back after me the next morning, stinking of smoke. He called that night Kristallnacht, meaning 'crystal night', which I soon realized was its official name. He said it with _ _pride._

_Please write soon, with something normal._

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

_November 13__th_ _, 1938  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_It seems I'm always scared for you these days, but once again I let out a huge sigh of relief when I saw my name and address in your handwriting on the outside of an envelope._

_I'm real sorry that happened to your home, Alice, and that you and your friends got caught up in it. I can't imagine what that would have felt like. Keep your hands clean, I've gotten a few nasty infections before and they're not much fun to deal with._

_Bucky and I read today that the bans on Jewish people aren't being lifted, and that they're transferring all Jewish property to Aryans. Does this affect your friends?_

_But you asked for normal. It's getting real cold here in New York, I go outside in two coats and a scarf and still feel like an ice cube by the time I get back in the apartment. Everyone's losing their minds because on the night before Halloween CBS ran a radio drama called '_The War of the Worlds' _(remember when we read that book at school?), and some of the listeners freaked out. Apparently some of them thought that a Martian invasion was really happening. The cops got called, everyone was angry, and now they're all wanting the station to undergo regulation._

_Bucky and I missed the program since he was teaching me how to box at the gym, but Bucky's been enjoying riling people up about it. Keeps running to the window and calling 'Look! Aliens invading New York!'_

_He thinks he's so funny._

_I know you said to talk about normal stuff, but there's been more army recruitment advertisements going around. I even got hired to draw a small one for the paper._

_Got to go head to work now. Take care of yourself. I'm really glad you're okay._

_Yours,  
Steve._

* * *

_November 20__th_ _, 1938  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_I'm glad you were able to take ownership of your friends' things. I'm sorry it was necessary in the first place, but it's better their stuff went to you than a stranger. Don't be disheartened that you can't do more – you're doing so much already. Remember to be safe._

_Normality: the Nancy Drew movie came out today. Bucky and I went to see it, for old times' sake, and because you won't be able to watch it what with it being banned in Germany and Austria. No idea why they banned it. I've heard they keep a running tally of Jews in Hollywood though, maybe one of them was involved in production._

_It's too bad, since it's a great movie. You'd love it, Alice. Reminded me of you in lots of ways. I remembered you absolutely devouring those books when you were a kid, sitting on a door stoop or curled up in the back room of the tailor shop. Nancy reminds me a lot of you, too; here's something to be said for tenacity._

_When you come back, we'll see the next Nancy Drew movie._

_See you then._

_Yours,  
Steve._

* * *

**Walter Copland Perry: ** ** _[The sirens'] song, though irresistibly sweet, was no less sad than sweet, and lapped both body and soul in a fatal lethargy, the forerunner of death and corruption._ **

* * *

_January 4__th_ _, 1939  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_We found Franz._

_As you know we've been searching for two days now, searching down every angle we can think of; no one at the music club has seen him, his blackmarket contacts haven't heard from him, not even his cousins in Innsbruck had a lead. Many thought he had been arrested and deported._

_But late last night Jilí remembered that Franz sometimes came back with flowers for her. We started searching around the local florists._

_We found him in an alleyway behind the Stadtkino theatre, a hundred yards away from a florist stall. He was in a narrow gap between buildings so we might not have seen him save for the crumpled bunch of flowers just outside._

_He was frozen solid, the blood glittering red around his head. We were only able to recognize him because of his clothes._

_Jilí has been so strong these past two days, unrelenting in her search. But when we saw him stuffed into that tiny gap she fell to her knees in the snow and fell apart. She beat her fists against the bricks of the building until her knuckles went bloody, and screamed so loud I had to put my hand over her mouth. She stopped fighting then and grabbed on to me. I still have bruises from how tightly she held me._

_We knelt in that stinking alleyway with the snow bleeding through our stockings as Jilí cried and choked. She didn't look back at Franz, but from my angle holding her there was no other direction I could look. He didn't look like a person anymore, Steve. They took that away from him._

_After what must have been nearly half an hour, Jilí suddenly stopped crying. She pulled away and I could see that she'd leashed herself together. Jilí's always been tough, pragmatic, but I've never seen her like this before. She was hard like a compressed diamond: glittering and unbreakable._

_"_ _We need to leave," she said._

_We both knew what had to be done. We left, and had the police called anonymously so they could pick up the body._

_Jilí will never see Franz again. If she approaches the police to arrange a funeral for him, that will only bring further attention to herself and could end with her arrested or deported. It's possible they're the ones who killed him. The government will put him in an unmarked grave, or burn him._

_I'm writing this from Jilí's house. She hasn't spoken much since we left the alley, and she hasn't shed a tear. She seems very tired, though. I've been plying her with tea, and holding her as she sits speechless. The house seems so cold without Franz in it. They've only been married a year and a half, but he brought out the best side to Jilí – he the genial jokester, her the tough-love Valkyrie._

_She'll get no justice for him. Not with the world the way it is now, anyway. Not even I can do that for her._

_Up until now this has all been about strangers. I've cared, deeply so, but everything I've done has been to protect people I don't really know. I haven't been able to help them, and now I haven't been able to help Franz._

_I keep thinking back to that night in Brooklyn when I saw those men attacking Matthias. I never really thought seriously before about what might have happened if I hadn't come down from the roof._

_Up until now I've been secretive, but in the way a teenager is secretive, to hide their actions from their parents. I can't be that teenager any longer. I must be two people. The Siren, in her gilded cage with her patriotic songs and glittering parties. Then Alice – Alice who hides in the shadow of the Siren's blazing glory._

_I think I sent you a photo of Franz and Jilí's wedding last year. Could you draw Franz for me? I'd like something to give Jilí when we hold a small gathering a few days from now._

_Yours,  
Alice._

* * *

_January 6__th_ _, 1939  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_I'm so sorry. I barely know what to say, I go from angry, to sad, to horrified, to scared._

_Franz seemed like a really swell guy, I know how close you were to him. I wanted to meet him one day. I've attached a portrait of him. Hope it's okay._

_I can't believe nothing can be done about him being killed – isn't there anyone who would look into it? A private investigator or something?_

_Pass on my condolences to Jilí. She didn't deserve any of this._

_Consider this letter my way of making you a cup of tea and giving you a hug. I'm angry for Franz, for Jilí and for you, but mostly I just want to make sure you're okay. Write soon._

_Love,  
Steve._


	17. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies in advance for the lack of Bucky in this chapter.

On Alice's seventeenth birthday, Steve got in a fight.

They'd been out at the same soda fountain they'd been going to for years, the three of them plus some of their other friends from school. Then a group of older boys on the other side of the shop began calling awful things towards the girls in the birthday party group, Steve got to his feet, and the rest was history.

The party broke up with Steve and the older boys being kicked out, Bucky chasing off the older boys, and Alice's other guests leaving. Alice stayed in the soda fountain for a few more minutes – a few of the boys had left their wallets behind so she handed their ID cards to the soda fountain owner so he could kick them out if they showed up again, stole just enough money to cover her tab, then dropped the wallets in the trash. She'd also memorized their addresses in case she ever ended up in the area and felt like having a chat with their mothers about how they spoke to women.

She walked out into the night air to see Steve sitting on the curb holding a handkerchief to his nose while Bucky stood over him, lecturing.

"– could've just spoken to the owner, Steve, this is Alice's birthday! You didn't have to–"

"He heard 'em, he wasn't doing anything about it!" Steve retorted. His voice came out muffled by blood. There must have been more fighting outside. "And I didn't even start it–"

"You went over there and told them to _shut the hell up_, what did you think would happen?"

Alice cleared her throat as she approached them and they both fell silent, glancing over with worried eyes. The streetlight fell on Steve's face, revealing a very bloody nose, a cut over his eyebrow, and a graze running up his forearm. Alice winced. His eyes were alight with leftover adrenaline.

"Sorry, Alice," he said miserably. Bucky crossed his arms and looked to be close to tutting.

Alice waved a hand. "Don't worry about it. I'm glad you stopped them, though I wish you hadn't done it with your face." She gestured to his injuries. "You look terrible."

"Thanks. I got in a few good hits."

"I must've missed that in between you getting your ass kicked," Bucky huffed. He checked his watch. "Damn it all to hell."

"You've got to get back to your sisters, right?" Alice said. Bucky's parents were travelling tonight and he had to be back to watch his sisters.

"I do." Bucky looked down at Steve. "But I can't let you walk back home like this, your ma will kill you _then _me."

Steve pulled the handkerchief away from his nose and winced. "You go, I'll get cleaned up somewhere on the way."

"Maybe I'll toss you in the river, see if that cleans out the rot between your ears," Bucky muttered.

"Then he'd get sick and you'd feel terrible," Alice cut in, half-smiling. "My place is just down the block, I'll take Steve and clean him up in the tailor shop."

Steve looked up. "You don't have to–"

"You hear that, Steve?" Bucky said, gesturing to Alice. "Now you have to be brought into the tailor shop like an old coat in need of darning. Like a boot–"

"I get it," Steve rolled his eyes. "I'll see ya tomorrow, Bucky. Say hi to your sisters for me."

"We'll see." Bucky turned to Alice and scooped her in for a hug. "Happy birthday, Al. Sorry we mucked it up."

"I don't see any mucking up here," she said warmly. "Here I thought I was going to have a boring birthday."

Bucky walked off into the darkness with a sigh for Steve and a wink for Alice.

Alice put her hands on her hips and looked down at Steve. He made a sorry picture on the curbside; he had blood on his nice shirt and his eyebrow was swelling up so he looked strangely quizzical. His arms were rising with goosebumps in the cool breeze.

"Are you okay?"

He glanced up from where he'd been looking at his bloody handkerchief. "Me? I'm fine."

She raised an eyebrow.

He just looked back at her, attempting to copy that guileless expression that got Alice out of so many scrapes.

She jerked her head. "C'mon."

They got a few looks from passersby as they walked down the block to the tailor shop, Alice moving slower to keep pace with the bloody, slightly-limping Steve. When Alice pulled out the keys for the shop an old lady walking past told her:

"You take care of your little brother now, young miss."

Steve's head dropped between his shoulders and his cheeks burned. Alice just hid a smile and nodded to the old woman.

Alice opened the door, revealing the tailor shop with the lights off and cloth over the desk and displays. "In you go. Careful not to bleed on anything."

She followed Steve through to the supply room, which they both knew like the backs of their hands by now, and Steve sank gratefully into his usual wooden chair in the corner as Alice rushed upstairs to fetch supplies. When she came back Steve hadn't moved aside from leaning his head against the back of the chair. That fight must have taken it out of him.

His head rose again at the sound of her setting down towels and a basin of warm water on the workbench. She'd learned how to do this since Matthias got hurt; she'd read a couple of nursing textbooks and had been picking up tips from Steve's mom whenever she came over to visit.

"I'm sorry," Steve murmured.

Alice dipped one of the towels in the water, turned to Steve, and slopped it gracelessly onto his face. He let out a muffled laugh and blinked up at her through watery eyelashes when she drew the towel away.

She smiled. "You don't need to be sorry." She re-dipped the towel and wrung it out, turning the water pink, then turned back to Steve and started cleaning the blood away more carefully. His nose had stopped bleeding, though it looked tender, and the eyebrow cut was still seeping lightly. She gave Steve a wad of gauze and told him to press down on it. While he did that, she started washing gravel out of his forearm cut. A moth fluttered around the orange light above them.

Alice worked in silence for a few moments, her mind on hygiene and the drip-dripping of the wet towel and how she'd have to find Steve a spare shirt to walk home in. She didn't notice Steve's mood darken.

"It's not that I'm _mindless_," he said into the silence. She glanced at his face and saw him staring into the middle distance. "I don't get into fights because I like fighting. I hope I'm not… not like them."

"You're not," she reassured. "I know why you do it. I just wish you'd look into other options first." She dabbed the cut with a mercurochrome swab, making him wince, then started swaddling his arm in a bandage. Her eyes flickered to his face. "But I think you do like it, a little bit."

Steve stiffened and looked away.

Alice smiled. "It's okay." He cautiously loosened again and looked up at her with curious eyes as she ripped a piece of adhesive tape with her teeth and secured the bandage. "I think I understand it. It feels good to be _doing _something, to strike out against the terrible things in the world with everything you've got." She shrugged and moved to his eyebrow cut. "I guess I just don't get the luxury of that a lot."

"Dunno if this counts as luxury." Steve winced as she pulled away the gauze.

"Well if nothing else, you're persistent. Anyone else would've given up on fighting back by now."

"Can't do that–"

"I know, I know." She turned to drop the bloody gauze on the table and pick up another swab, and as she did she perfectly mimicked Steve's voice: "Start running, you'll never stop." She smiled and shook her head at him. Steve always felt a bit unnerved when she did that, but it did make him smile. "I'm not running either, Steve."

"You never do, do you," he said thoughtfully. She swabbed his forehead cut and he winced again.

"I just hide," she said, with a bite of resentment toward herself.

"You don't hide," he protested. "It's not hiding. You… what d'you call it when those big cats hide in the grass and wait to spring? Or when birds of prey hide behind the clouds?"

"I think you call it hiding," she said with a smile, but her fingers slowed as they cleaned Steve's forehead. His earnestness always took her by surprise – she'd never known someone so honest where it counted, so determined to do right. She found herself struck by what he'd said.

"Mm," Steve said, thinking. He smelled like blood and soap, and the combination tickled Alice's nose. "Gotta be a better word. Because that's what you do."

She angled over him to pinch the cut together and tape it, looking down at him. "You think I'm a bird of prey, Steve?"

He looked up at her. She saw the lump in his throat bob. "A little bit, yes."

Her lips spread in a grin. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"You should."

The workroom door opened then, revealing Matthias in just his trousers, shirt, and socks. He glanced at the two of them, made a face at the bloody gauze on the workbench, then said: "I'll go find some raw meat for your face," and walked out again.

Alice laughed at the embarrassed expression on Steve's face.

* * *

Excerpt from New York Times interview with Sergeant Timothy Alloysius Cadwaller "Dum Dum" Dugan, 1978:

_"_ _Sarge was always telling us about the scrapes Cap used to get into when he was a scrawny kid," Dugan remembers with a hearty laugh. "Always told us that he'd never have made it to twenty if it weren't for having someone there to patch him up – poor old Sarge, usually, or… or his ma." Dugan shakes his head, bemused. "I can believe it, too. The only reason Cap didn't get torn to shreds in the war was because they pumped him full of super juice and gave him an impenetrable shield. He never changed up here." Dugan taps his forehead and gives me a wink._

* * *

Their final year of school began in September, and Alice and Steve were thrown back into study. The New York Passenger Ship Terminal construction was finished, so Bucky started moving cargo at the Red Hook docks. He was back in the neighborhood, so sometimes Alice and Steve walked to the docks to meet up with him at the ends of his shifts.

However, Bucky started coming along on their outings less and less. He said it was because he was busy with work, but he still met up with them individually and Alice could sense a lie. She was too afraid of what the lie could be to call him out on it.

It wasn't like it was a great burden to her to spend time alone with Steve. At some point over the past few years he had become indispensable to her – when she was excited about something, it didn't feel real until she'd shared it with him. She worked hard for his small half-smile or even rarer, his laugh, and felt a disproportionate amount of joy when she achieved it. He always had such a heavy aura of _seriousness_ about him – shifting it aside to get to the secretly funny person beneath was an ongoing mission of hers.

They didn't usually have enough money to _do _anything really, so mostly they just walked around, exploring Brooklyn and getting into scrapes. They liked the park, and the museums and art galleries since they were free. They talked about the places they would go: the Smithsonian in D.C., the Louvre in Paris, distant shores and beautiful cities. Art lived inside both of them and spooled out in reams of imagination, making the bustling streets of Brooklyn seem somehow more than they were.

Alice showed up with tea and books whenever Steve was sick, and helped his mom without being asked. She came over to fix their radio when it started going crackly (turned out the tubes needed realigning) and actually blushed when Steve's mom kissed her on the head in thanks.

Alice wrote him songs, usually joke songs. The first was "Get Well Steve", which was all about the wonderful stuff waiting for him outside ("You'll miss the pigeons fighting the rats behind the bakery," she sang to his spluttering laughter), but also about how he needed to take time to get better. Another of her songs chronicled his many fights like the bard legends of old. But she also shared her more serious compositions – the ones about her wonderment in watching her brother grow up, about how the stars looked on clear nights from the roof of her tenement, about running down a street behind her friends with sea salt in the air.

Steve drew for her. He'd always been sketching, jotting down the likeness of the world around him, but this felt different. This felt like an exchange of pieces of their minds, an exchange of promises. He drew her the Brooklyn Bridge and the leathery faces they came across at the docks in Red Hook. For her joke songs he drew her joke-images: Bucky as a nurse maid telling off toddler-versions of Alice and Steve; Alice as a soldier with a helmet on her head and a grim look of determination on her face; Alice as a bird perched on a church pew.

He drew her imagined landscapes of rolling hills and exotic plants, and adventure scenes of soldiers running along rooftops and the tops of trains. For his birthday Alice had given him a journal, but he filled it mostly with images from each day, rather than words. She liked looking at it to understand how he saw the day so differently. She experienced the world through sound: voices and song and the clatter-bang of everyday life, but Steve caught the fleeting images and moments that most people forgot in the blink of an eye.

He showed her only a quarter of the sketches he'd done of her.

When Steve was alone with Bucky he confided that he felt as if he were hurtling somewhere very fast on a train, but the blurred images through the windows looked like dredging treacle. Things were changing between he and Alice, he could sense it, but he had no idea how it would all turn out.

"Stop waiting for something to happen," Bucky advised. "You're not stuck on a train, you're driving it."

Steve, who no one could accuse of being a coward, hunched his shoulders up to his ears and pretended he couldn't hear.

Alice confided in no one that her feelings toward Steve were rapidly twisting, cresting, like a leaf snatched up in a storm about to be flung above the clouds. She barely allowed herself to acknowledge it. But she could not deny that even when she wasn't with him, Steve dominated her thoughts. When they were together she simultaneously wanted to lean in close and flee as fast as she could. He made her feel less closed off, more free to feel and be and create. He felt like fizzing soda in her stomach, like the calm of a song.

Bucky wrote them both off as hopeless and left them space to figure things out. He wasn't one to sit around not acting on his feelings.

Alice was drawn to Steve's side every day. When winter crept over Brooklyn and made the streets shiver they tried to stay inside more often; usually in Steve's house with or without his mom, or in the back of the tailor shop. When they scratched together some money they went to the cinema, splurged on food at the soda fountain, or went to Coney Island with Bucky.

When they were younger they never spent this much time together. It got to the point that if Alice stayed at home Tom would wander out and ask "Where's Steve?", glancing around as if he might spot a pair of narrow, angular shoulders somewhere in the flat. More often than not the answer was "He's on his way," and Tom would smile his toothy smile.

Thanksgiving came around, and Steve's mom was scheduled to work on the evening of the holiday. Bucky and his family were going out to their relatives in Long Island for the weekend. Bucky offered for Steve to join them – _as long as you don't fight my uncle, punk_ – but then Alice quietly invited him to come to the family gathering at her house.

Steve and Bucky exchanged a glance, then Steve turned back to Alice and said: "Yes. Please. If that's okay. Thank you." He wanted to shake himself but he needed to be _not weird._

Alice smiled. "It's okay."

* * *

When the day came Steve found himself on the stoop outside the Moser-Johnson tenement building in his best (and only) suit, clutching a metal pot full of buttered peas he'd made with his mom's help. There was a chill in the air and the sky was dimming. Steve shifted where he stood, checked his barely-working watch, tucked his hair back into place.

He shook his head at himself. He _knew _this place. He'd spent five summers in the tailor shop and its back room, he'd even been up in the house half a dozen times, but this felt different.

Finally, the door opened.

Steve had fainted a couple of times in his life, and the sudden tingly head-rush he felt when Alice appeared from behind the dark tenement door made him worried for a moment. She grinned out at him as if she'd been wishing that he'd be behind the door and was overjoyed that the wish had come true.

She wore a green collared dress cinched around her waist with a brown belt and her blonde hair hung in short ringlets. A fresh gleam glittered in her eyes. Steve swallowed and realized his throat was dry.

"You got here early," she said, composing her grin into her usual calm façade.

_Twenty minutes early, just in case. _Steve looked at his watch. "Did I? I guess I-"

"Come in," she said with a smile in her voice. Steve could only obey.

They walked slowly up the too-narrow stairs with their shoulders bumping against each other, and Steve asked about Alice's recent performance at a dance hall. She'd told him about it over the radio, but using morse code made their conversations clipped and stilted – he liked to hear her voice.

Alice pushed the apartment door open with one hand while using the other to illustrate the size of the dance hall, and Steve stepped inside just as Matthias came to grab the door.

"Steve!" Matthias exclaimed, spreading his arms wide. He had a spot of what looked like gravy on the corner of his collar, and his smile was just as wide and welcoming as ever. Steve had liked Matthias the first time he ever saw him, though he hadn't found out for weeks that he was Alice's stepfather. Matthias was one of those personalities who brightened the people around him; a genuinely cheerful man, and he'd never had a harsh word for Steve even though Steve had been occupying more and more of Alice's attention and time.

Matthias came over to whisk the pot out of Steve's hands and cracked the lid open. "Peas! Thank you, Steve, you didn't have to do that. Did you cook these?"

"With some help," Steve admitted. He glanced over his shoulder at Alice, who nodded encouragingly and then followed him into the apartment.

Steve trailed Matthias across the apartment to the dining table and took in the room around him: it wasn't as full as the time they'd held that party to celebrate Alice's first radio experience, but it was still packed with people. He recognized Matthias's family, some people from church, and a few women who must have been Alice's mom's friends. Alice and her mom didn't have any family in New York, so Matthias's relatives made up the bulk of the numbers.

People nodded and smiled at Steve as he followed Matthias to the table. The radio warbled songs into the room, flowing under the current of conversations and laughter, and amber liquid gleamed in glasses. It seemed he and Alice were the only teenagers.

"_Guten Abend,_ Steve!" Alice's mom called as she whirled past with a tray of cookies. He opened his mouth to reply but she'd already leaned over the couch to offer the biscuits to Matthias's sister and her husband.

"Here we are," Matthias said, and Steve looked over his shoulder to see him place the peas in pride of place on the dinner table.

The table was a mouthwatering sight. There was what looked like a small turkey under tinfoil (Steve got it, his mom could never afford a large turkey on Thanksgiving either), surrounded with plenty more dishes to make up for it: mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, asparagus, pies. From all the tinfoil and different dishes it seemed everyone had brought a few dishes to share.

Matthias took in Steve's hungry eyes and laughed. "Settle down, Rogers, we're sitting down to eat in just a second."

Steve hesitated, waiting for the dig about his size, but it didn't come. Matthias just clapped him on the shoulder and then went to wrangle Tom. Steve let out a breath.

"You okay?" Alice asked from behind his shoulder. He turned to her and she shrugged. "I know they can be… a lot."

He followed her gaze around the room: children underfoot, gabbing aunties, loud laughter. He shook his head. There would always be a part of him that envied Bucky and Alice for their big families. He wished his mom could be here – too often it was just the two of them, and she worked so hard to support them. She deserved to spend a night surrounded by love like this. _Next year._

He turned to Alice. "I'm okay." He glanced around. "How can I help out? Does anything need… carrying?"

She watched his face with a smile playing at her lips. Eventually she tipped her head. "Mom asked me to start '_die Schafe hüten'. _Means herding the-"

"Sheep," Steve finished. Alice's eyes widened a little and he smiled. "I remember that one."

"_Gut gemacht_," [_Well done_] she replied, then jerked her head for him to follow.

They circled the room politely asking people to please head for the table, and were mostly obeyed. Tom soon figured out that Steve was in the room and ran for the blonde boy who listened to him seriously and drew pretty drawings, and could not be convinced to let him go. The frizz-haired boy escorted Steve around by the hand until everyone had taken their seats at the table.

At the table, Matthias and Marie shared the role of host. The food smelled delicious and Steve could hear more than his own stomach grumbling.

"Thank you for coming, everyone," Alice's mom said with a smile that matched her daughter's. "Let's say grace."

Steve realized that he was sitting between Alice and Tom. Tom was already clutching his hand in a sweaty grip, but for a moment he and Alice looked at each other, hesitant. They'd spent years in each other's company, but they didn't often touch. Steve still remembered her light grip on his elbow at the dance in summer break.

Alice placed her hand on the table between their plates, palm-up. Everyone else at the table was already holding hands, so Steve laid his hand over Alice's without another moment's thought. Their fingers linked. She had clever typist's fingers, the brush of her fingertips over the back of his hand sent a shiver down his spine.

Matthias said grace – _amen_, murmured Steve – and then hands unlinked all over the table to dig into the food. Steve felt reluctant to draw his fingers away from Alice's; the moment seemed to lag like treacle, skin slipping against skin and then emptiness. Steve didn't look at her.

The food was just as delicious as it smelled. Alice and Steve were each allowed a finger of brandy, trading a secret glinting glance at the comments about their 'first drink', and Matthias's family supplied endless sources of side-splitting and often bizarre conversation. They were a colorful family full of jibes and strong opinions and a veritable treasure-trove of musical knowledge.

They quizzed Steve about his family and his home and what he thought about Roosevelt, and Alice defended him when he got too flustered by distracting them with an offhand comment that would have them all up in an excitable uproar. Tom just laughed to see his family interrogating Steve like he was a spy. Matthias's sister Molly declared Steve a "genuine sweetheart," and he blushed to the tips of his ears. Tom's granny just peered through her glasses at him like he might try to poison them all and didn't say a word.

Matthias managed to reel in the conversation just long enough to get them all to say something they were thankful for. It was all a mix of sweet and bemusing – they were thankful for safety and snickers bars and their family, for Fred Astaire's dancing feet and for having enough money to put dinner on the table every night.

One of the ladies from church had her turn, smiling at her children, and then it was Alice's turn. She looked around warmly.

"I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful that we've got our home, and enough to eat. I'm thankful for my friends."

Her eyes fell on Steve, softer than usual. After a few moments he realized she wasn't just looking at him, she was waiting for him to talk. He started nervously and looked around to see Matthias and Alice's mom trading an amused glance.

_What am I thankful for? _He asked himself. _Not the Dodgers, _he thought distractedly. They'd lost again.

He swallowed and looked up. "I, uh, I'm thankful that all of you invited me here, it was real nice of you and I appreciate it. I'm thankful for my mom, and Bucky, a-and Alice." He stopped there. He didn't look at her because doing so right then felt dangerous – a prickle on the side of his neck.

The attention slid away from Steve to Tom, and Steve let out a breath.

Tom cleared his throat importantly and exclaimed: "I'm thankful for pumpkin pie!"

* * *

The next month passed in a daze of studying in freezing classrooms, and sideways glances. Bucky went on a few dates with a girl called Lacey and Alice remained friends with her after they broke up, much to Bucky's consternation.

On Christmas afternoon the three of them met up at Steve's house, where his mom welcomed them with eggnog and leftover ham. They sat in the living room to trade presents.

Bucky gifted them both warm hats (which Alice suspected his sisters had made), and made both of them wear the hats inside because he claimed they looked cold. Alice gave Bucky a Vargas girls calendar, which made Steve blush and Bucky roar with laughter so loud that Steve's mom came into the room and then rolled her eyes. Steve got Bucky a novel he'd been asking for.

Steve's gift to Alice was a drawing. She pulled it out of its tissue paper sleeve with gentle fingers, and took a few moments to absorb it. It was a portrait of her: she stood in the center of New York City where the Empire State should be, standing tall over the buildings with a microphone stand before her. And the entire city curved towards her like she was the heart of it. She eyed the fine shading against the curve of her cheek, the detail of her fingers on the microphone stand.

Alice wasn't sure what the drawing meant, but it made her heart thud. "Thank you," she murmured. He waved her off with pink cheeks.

Alice's small package for Steve contained a compass.

"I could tell you something sweet and stupid about how I hope you always end up going in the right direction," she said thoughtfully as he opened it. "But truthfully, I'm worried you'll get yourself lost the minute you leave New York."

"You think I'm going to leave New York?" he asked half-laughingly. He picked up the compass and examined it; it was a simple lensatic bronze one which she'd bought at an army surplus store. The needle shivered as he lifted it.

"You will one day," she said confidently. "As a soldier or by some other way, you will. You're not meant to be here forever."

He felt almost unnerved by that, but it gave him hope. He weighed the compass in his hand. "Then I better hang onto this." He pocketed it. "Thank you, Alice."

They leaned across the carpet to hug each other one-armed, and Bucky watched them with a raised eyebrow.

* * *

Comment Section on Buzzfeed article '_Captain America's newly-released early recruitment report has the internet scratching its head at how he's alive' _(2013):

\- _My only question is? How?_

\- _Ah, I understand what his problem was now – his everything was sick._

\- _Seems kind of skeevy to publish a living guy's medical history._

\- _Jeez, scarlet fever AND rheumatic fever. Those were no joke back in the 30s. I'd worry that he'd be bringing old superbugs into the future, but given the super serum he's probably healthier than any of us._

\- _'__Nervous trouble of any sort'? If I had a list of health issues that long you can bet I'd be nervous too!_

* * *

January was all vapor-breaths and crunching through snow to school and shivering in poorly heated classrooms. A tickle in Alice's throat turned into a croak and she had to cancel some of her performances. She lay wadded in bed, reading through her old copies of Nancy Drew and tapping out Morse code to Steve on the radio. Tom brought her steaming cups of tea and let her hug him for warmth.

After a few weeks the croak in Alice's throat turned into a full-blown cold, and as if in competition Steve came down with a shivery flu. Bucky was still working down at the docks in the biting snow, but in his off days he went from one house to the other with sweets and a terrible joke guaranteed to make an invalid laugh.

On Saturday afternoon after days of being stuck at home Alice stubbornly pulled on her coat and boots, wrapped a scarf around her neck, and headed for the door.

"Where do you think you're going, schemer?" Matthias called from the kitchen.

"I'm feeling better, I'm going to go to Steve's."

Her mom walked out of the bedroom with Tom and cast an assessing eye over her. "_Du siehst müde aus, Liebling._" [_You look tired, darling_] "Why don't you stay and rest?"

"I'm not tired, _mama-_"

"Then why not come with us? Father Rickard lent us his car, we're going to drop Tom with Molly in Harlem then go to White Plains to see after that sewing machine." Tom's thirty-year old machine had broken down last week. Alice's mom came over to stroke Alice's hair away from her face. "I don't like the idea of you walking around in the cold."

"Seconded," said Matthias as he hoisted Tom up onto his hip. Tom already looked sleepy.

Alice shook her head. "I'm fine, I think the fresh air will help."

They parted ways at the bottom of the stairwell and Alice began battling up the three blocks in the freezing wind to Steve and his mom's tenement. The fresh air did not help – it seemed to cut right through her, chilling her bones, so by the time she knocked on the Rogers' door she was shaking so hard that her teeth clacked together.

Steve's mom opened the door. "Oh good heavens," she said, resigned and not entirely surprised, and hauled Alice inside.

It was blessedly warm inside the apartment. After toeing off her boots Alice allowed herself to be bustled into the living room where Steve sat swaddled in blankets on the sofa, bleary-eyed and red nosed. His eyes widened when he saw their visitor, though he didn't think to speak as she dropped into the rocking chair adjacent to the sofa and sneezed loudly.

"Do your parents know you're here?" Steve's mom called as she bustled into the kitchen. Alice noted that she wore her nurse uniform, and from the bag at the door she supposed she'd just been on her way out.

"Yes." Steve's mom put a blanket on her lap, so she unfolded and pulled it up over herself. _Ahhh. _"I don't mean to be a bother, I can head back home if–"

"No," Steve croaked at the same time as his mom said: "I wouldn't hear of it."

She emerged from the kitchen with a steaming mug and pressed it into Alice's hands. "Here." She put a palm to Alice's head. "This is that tea you brought us, you look like you're in need of it. Stay here, don't move, and don't go home until you feel absolutely, positively well. I'll see if I can have your parents come pick you up."

"Thank you Mrs Rogers," Alice murmured. The warmth from the tea seeped into her palms. It smelled like lemon and herbs.

"I've said you can call me Sarah," the older woman said gently, then pulled away. "Steve, remember to take your medicine at five. I'll see you later sweetheart." With that she pulled her bag over her shoulder, fixed her cap, and then headed out of the apartment.

Alice and Steve glanced at each other. The clock on the mantelpiece dinged softly, and the distant sounds of cars rumbling and far off-construction trickled in. The Rogers' apartment was just as small and homey as ever, with the same faded furniture and the portrait of Mr Rogers on the wall. Alice loved this place. She still remembered the first time she'd been, when she'd felt so curious about everything she saw. But now she knew the titles of the books in the small bookshelf in the corner, she knew where to find the teaspoons, she knew the whole sad story behind the portrait on the wall.

Alice turned itchy eyes back to Steve. He watched her, looking sick out of his mind from the flu. His hair was all scraggly and uncombed over his head, and his sharp chin jutted out from over the top of his blanket.

"So how are you doing?" she asked to break the silence.

He closed his eyes when he laughed. "I'm fine. You didn't have to come check on me, I've been worse."

"I know." Alice pulled her knees to her chest and the rocking chair swayed under her. The blanket Mrs Rogers had given her was brown and a bit scratchy, and smelled of Steve.

Steve wriggled closer on the sofa. "So why'd you come?"

She met his eyes. "Gotta keep an eye on you, Rogers." His eyebrows rose. "You're squirrelly."

"You're right," he said. "I might do somethin' stupid."

"Exactly."

"Like go out in the middle of winter by myself while I'm sick."

Alice's eyes narrowed as Steve's gleamed.

She sipped her tea slowly. "You're feeling brave today," she noted.

"I've had a lotta medicine."

She snorted into her tea and that got him laughing again. The two of them croaked and wheezed and coughed as they laughed, which just made them laugh more, and Alice felt her shivers fade away.

They bickered back and forth for a few minutes, and then Alice got up to turn on the radio. When she came back, the rocking chair felt treacherous as she tried to sit back down so she slowly slid to the floor instead. Steve laughed at her, then slid down from the couch as well. They were almost toe-to-toe, sitting on the floor like children.

One of her favorite songs came onto the radio and Alice tried to sing along, but her throat rasped and hurt and she had to give it up. Steve watched her with pale blue eyes.

So instead they talked. They knew each other so well by now that every topic felt familiar, but that didn't make it boring. They talked about the book they'd been reading in class and the Dodgers and how Bucky was working too hard and the broken sewing machine and about what it would be like for Steve to join the 107th one day. Alice looked away from Steve for a moment to take a sip of her tea, but then realized she'd let it go cold.

They traded tired jokes and laughed when they sneezed. Steve was a little more bold and talkative than normal, probably because of the fever and the medicine.

It felt _normal. _Alice realized that she didn't just feel like a guest here, sitting on the paisley patterned rug with Steve croaking a laugh across from her. It felt like a home. She had a flash-vision of herself coming through the front door and Steve's voice saying _welcome home. _The vision faded in a moment and she blinked away the afterimage.

Her cheeks had gone warm, she realized, and the room had gone silent once again.

Steve was looking at her. He'd never gotten that promised growth spurt and it wasn't likely he would – he was still half a head shorter than her, with ears that stuck out and clothes too big for him and a few strands of hair that he was constantly brushing away from his forehead. Alice always wanted to reach out and grab his fingers to stop him. She used to think it was because she was annoyed at the habit, but she wasn't so sure now.

Steve's eyes were always so serious, save for those rare moments she got to see when he was with Bucky or his mom, or her. They were serious again now, but not in the grim way they usually were.

Alice wondered how long they'd gone without talking. She wondered how much longer they could go like this, just staring at each other. She wasn't even sure what had been said last.

Steve drew in a breath and opened his mouth to blurt out: "Would it be alright if I kissed you?"

Alice's eyes widened and her stomach swooped. "Right now?"

He leaned forward, blankets rustling, as if to plant one on her, then swayed when he was halfway there and said: "I dunno if that's a good idea."

She smiled. Underneath her blanket, her toes curled. "I don't think so either."

Steve sat back and his face fell.

"Oh no, I don't mean at all!" she exclaimed, holding up a hand. "I mean, just now."

He looked up again. "Do you mean…"

Alice couldn't help but smile fondly at him; brave Steve Rogers who she hadn't been able to get out of her head since seventh grade. She leaned forward slightly. "Ask again when neither of us is sick, and you're sure you've got your head on straight. And I'll probably say yes."

His eyes shone. "Probably?"

"Well I might have eaten garlic, or not have brushed my teeth, or I might have been eating icecream and have a very cold mouth," she said, because she was nervous and excited and overtalking in a way she normally never did unless she was trying to distract someone.

"I wouldn't care," Steve said loudly. "I'd kiss you if you had shark teeth."

Alice grinned at him. "You _are _feeling brave today, Steve." His cheeks went pink, as if realizing just how loopy he was acting, and Alice shyly met his eyes. "For what it's worth, I'd kiss you if you had shark teeth too."

He smiled back at her, shy and pleased, and she added: "But I would be very careful about it."

* * *

When Alice walked home that evening (after making sure she felt well enough and giving Steve a quick, shy peck on the forehead), she understood what the singers meant when they said _over the moon._

Her feet felt light on the pavement she'd trudged over only hours before. Nerves and excitement zinged through her in a potent mix that she only ever felt around Steve, or before she sang: like buzzing wasps in her stomach.

The snow in Brooklyn had given way to a light drizzle. The light shone off the damp pavement and Alice felt _alive. _She'd find a way to sing this moment, if she could just discover the right words.

When she pushed open the door at home she hesitated on the doorstep a moment – it almost felt as if a cold wind had blown out from within, jarring against the elation of her spirits. She wondered if someone had left a window open inside. But she didn't _feel_ cold.

She stepped inside.

Molly, Matthias's sister, looked up from where she sat on the couch. Tom was curled up into her with his face hidden against her shoulder, and tears gleamed on Molly's cheeks.

Alice froze.

"Where's mom and Matthias?" A neutral voice. Betraying nothing.

Molly shook her head. Alice already knew.

"They're dead, child," Molly breathed as she rocked Tom. "I'm so sorry."

* * *

** _~ Such short, tragic lives. ~_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus begins some actual plot! There's just one more 'letters' chapter left.
> 
> I've never celebrated Thanksgiving in my life, so I hope this was at least mildly accurate. Also: 'Vargas girls' refers to an early form of pin-up model drawn by a guy called Joaquin Vargas. Before World War II the images were apparently more about women's beauty rather than sexuality, but I feel like Bucky would appreciate either.


	18. Letters Across the Ocean (9)

**John Donne: ** ** _More than kisses, letters mingle souls._ **

* * *

_February 4th_ _, 1939  
Berlin  
Dear Steve,_

_I saw the Buck Rogers movie today. Thankfully it made its way through the German censorship wall and I was able to see it at a Berlin theater (I'm here to perform. Don't feel like talking about it). It made me so homesick, but the happy kind of homesick rather than the sad. It was nice to laugh. Reminded me of poring over those comics with you and Bucky when we were kids._

_I have to say though, it never occurred to me before that the idea of crashing a dirigible into the north pole and surviving under the ice for 500 years is kind of unbelievable. Oh well. Someone needed to be around to defeat Killer Kane._

_Thanks for asking after Jilí. She's doing okay. Doesn't talk much still, but she's really doubled down on helping our friends. She's one of those people who has to be doing something in their grief so they don't succumb to it. I help where I can, but my uncle's hold on me has been tighter lately._

_Let me know if you saw the movie. It'd be nice to reminisce over old times._

_Yours,  
Alice._

* * *

_February 21st_ _, 1939  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_I want to preface this by saying that I did _ _ not _ _ get into a fight, whatever Bucky will have you believe. I mean sure, I _ _ would've _ _ gotten into a fight if he didn't stop me, but the facts are what they are._

_He's just annoyed that I tricked him. Anyway._

_A few weeks ago I saw an advertisement in the paper for a rally at Madison Square Garden on the 20_ _th_ _, and then heard people talking about it – and how the mayor decided to let the rally go ahead. When the day came, I told Bucky I'd heard of a new dance club opened up in Midtown and wanted to go (really, that's on him for believing me)._

_Well, when I led him into the giant crowd outside Madison Square Garden, he realized what was up._

_You see, there's a group in the US called the German Bund. They're pro-Nazi, and decided to hold a rally in New York on George Washington's birthday. (Remember I mentioned they were in New York last year, and got into a fight with some veterans?) They called it the "Pro American Rally". Obviously I wasn't there to join them, but the big crowd of protesters outside. Once Bucky stopped being angry at me he figured he was plenty angry enough at the Nazis to join the protest._

_We didn't see much of the event itself since the police kept the protesters out, and I'm glad for it. All the Bund members were dressed up like the SS, and the few banners I saw were… well. You know what the Nazis have to say about the people they don't like. They played martial music as they waved American flags beside Nazi ones and did the Nazi salute. Apparently a Jewish boy leapt on stage at one point, but he was attacked and thrown out._

_In the rally they sang a few German folk songs. We heard it outside, and I recognized some of the songs. But when you sang those songs they sounded like lullabies. These guys sang them like war cries._

_Bucky and I shouted along with the rest of the much larger crowd of New Yorkers. I'm no stranger to protests, as you know. Some of these protesters had signs – my favorite was "Give me a gas mask, I can't stand the smell of Nazis". Thought you might like that one._

_Things got a bit outta hand toward the end. A protester punched a police horse in the face to get away from the officer riding it, and when the Nazis came out at the end we all made a rush for the police line._

_I managed to get through since I was shorter than mostly everyone else, and I went right for a guy carrying a giant swastika flag. I wanted to tear it out of his hands. But Bucky got through after me and dragged me back before I could get to any of them. Though I think he was more reluctant about dragging me back then than about any of the other fights he's pulled me away from._

_Some Nazis got punched. Guess I'll have to take that as consolation._

_Yours,  
Steve_

_PS: It's just occurred to me I'm sending this into German-occupied Austria. If you're reading this, Nazi censors, suck an egg._

* * *

_February 24th_ _, 1939  
Vienna  
Steve!_

_How can you constantly be telling me to be careful but then charge at the first swastika you see like an angry bull? (not that I don't enjoy the mental picture)._

_I heard about that Bund rally, they're all very excited about it over here. What with Hitler opening a sixth concentration camp, it's all 'progress' here._

_I'm glad you didn't get yourself hurt, give Bucky a hug for me. He's earned it. Next time, just let him know there's an anti-Nazi rally and he'll probably come along of his own free will. He's made his feelings perfectly clear in his letters to me._

_Got to go, I've got a performance in thirty minutes._

_Yours,  
Alice_

_PS: Suck eggs, censors! (There aren't actually any censors, at least not yet. I got introduced to the postmaster a few months ago and with some careful questioning figured out that they're not reading the mail. Yet.)_

* * *

_April 19th_ _, 1939  
Harlem  
Dear Alice,_

_Quit worrying about me, I'm doing fine in school! I'll send you my report card if you don't believe me. I'm eleven now, I can take care of myself._

_Molly played that new record of yours the other day, I really liked it. I still remember bits of German so I understood some of it, which was nice. You've got a real nice voice. It was good to hear it again._

_Can you send me more photos from Vienna? I liked the last lot you sent me, and they're still on my wall. It's weird to think that we used to live in the same house, but now I'm in this tenement apartment in Harlem and you're in some kind of crazy mansion in Vienna._

_Do you think I could come visit you, maybe when I'm older?_

_I gotta go, Billy Rockwell's got a new baseball bat so we're going to go try it out down at the park._

_Bye for now,  
Tom_

* * *

_May 10th_ _, 1939  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_I don't need to ask if you've seen the movie I'm about to tell you about, because I'm 100% sure they won't have screened it in Germany._

_It's called 'Confessions of a Nazi Spy'. Can you guess what it's about?_

_Most other films I've seen have danced around the topic of Germany, but this one goes after them hard – it called the Nazi party dangerous. Which shouldn't be news, but this was the first movie to say it._

_It's got people all riled up, predictably, and I hear Mr Hitler across the pond isn't very happy._

_We gotta get you a screening of it when you get back, somehow. Scratch that, a screening of every movie you missed. Those German censors have got no taste._

_Yours,  
Steve._

* * *

Excerpt from '_11 Influential Films You've Never Heard Of' _by Will Chester(2015):

_6\. 'Confessions of a Nazi Spy'. Produced in 1939, this was the first Hollywood film to blatantly criticize the Nazi party and their ideology. Its plot is loosely based on a 1938 riot against the German Bund by veterans in New York City, and a Nazi espionage case in the same year._

_Though the film failed at the box office, it won the National Board of Review Award for Best Film that year, and fuelled a serious national conversation about the gravity of the Nazi Party's policies and their impact on the United States._

* * *

_May 24th_ _, 1939  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_I'm writing again, without much hope, to ask you to come home._

_You said that things are getting more serious – more munitions factories being built, the navy expanding, more men recruited to the army. You said yourself that almost half of the Jews in Vienna have left._

_We've been following things closely in the news here, and they say that war might be on the way. If not for America, then definitely for Germany. Bucky and I still aren't sure – I don't reckon anyone wants another war. But Germany's been annexing all the small areas that no one cares about around it, and the other day the Germans signed an alliance with Italy. _ _ If _ _ it does come to war, I don't see how you can stay and keep helping. That's a whole other level of danger. Even if you stop helping people, no war is safe._

_You should come home to Brooklyn, far away from all that. You'd be safe here. I know you want to protect people, but there's only so much you can do – and there's people who need help back here at home. You could bring Jilí. Maybe you could be an advocate here, tell people what's going on in Germany and Austria. They'd listen to you._

_Please think about it._

_Yours,  
Steve_

* * *

_May 28th_ _, 1939  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_I'm sorry. I can't._

_For one thing my uncle would never let me go. But even if he did, I wouldn't go. I can hardly explain it, but I know I'm not done. Jilí needs me, though she'd never admit it, and so do our friends. I can't leave them._

_I will be as safe as I can, and I've learned how to be careful._

_I'm still not sure that it will come to war. Nationalism is at an all time high here, but no one wants a war like the last one. I think the Germans might strike out, find the world less easy to conquer than they imagined, and then slide back inwards. Things will change here. They have to._

_If _ _it does come to war, I know I can't ask you not to enlist. So I'll ask you now to take one goddamn minute and _ _ think. _ _ Think about what you're throwing yourself into, think about the consequences. Think about what I'd say. Then decide. I think that's the most I'll get you to agree to, so I'll leave it there._

_I'll offer you the same promise._

_Yours,  
Alice._

* * *

_June 15th_ _, 1939  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_So, I graduated today. I'm now a first-class honors graduate of the _ _Austrian Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts. I learned a lot there, but I'm glad to be leaving. So much has changed since I first walked through those doors. My instructors were actually much more palatable than my uncle's friends, but even the academy has changed along with the rest of the country. My favorite instructors left, the rest have joined in the patriotic fervor._

_I've been in Vienna three years now, but it feels like a lifetime._

_Yours,  
Alice._

* * *

_August 24th_ _, 1939  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_We're doing alright, money's a little tight at the moment but we've had worse. Bucky's sisters are able to get some work which helps them out, and I've picked up a couple more commissions._

_Buck and I reckoned we had enough money yesterday to go see a movie (remember when the three of us used to scrape together our pennies?). The film was really great, though I doubt it'll make it to your neck of the woods. It's based on that 'Wizard of Oz' book, did you ever read it?_

_Bucky's been trying to figure out which of Dorothy's friends (there's a scarecrow who wants a brain, a tin man who wants a heart, and a lion who wants courage) the three of us resemble most. I don't imagine it'll be very flattering either way._

_(Update: He's decided I'm the scarecrow who needs a brain, all because I helped Mrs Calloway cart her groceries upstairs without getting Bucky to do it for me.)_

_(Second update: He's decided he wants to be the Wizard)._

_Just read the paper; apparently the Nazis have signed a non aggression agreement with the Soviet Union – that's probably a good thing, right?_

_Yours,  
Steve._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alice is Dorothy.
> 
> And that was the last of the 'Letters Across the Ocean' chapters! Next chapter will land on Wednesday as usual (Christmas for me!), and after that the chapter schedule will roll back to one a week. Don't forget to comment!


	19. Chapter Ten

**STATE OF NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH  
STANDARD CERTIFICATE OF DEATH**

1\. COUNTY OF: _Kings County _CITY, TOWN, OR RURAL DISTRICT: _Brooklyn_

2\. FULL NAME: _Marie __Léonie Johnson_

3\. SEX: _female_

4\. RACE: _Cauc._

5\. MARITAL STATUS: _Married_

6\. IF MARRIED, WIDOWED, OR DIVORCED, NAME OF HUSBAND OR WIFE: _Matthias Cowlie Johnson_

7\. DATE OF BIRTH: _December 1 1894_

8\. AGE: _41yr __2mo __7days_

9\. TRADE, PROFESSION, OR KIND OF WORK DONE: _Translator_

10\. BIRTHPLACE (CITY OR TOWN): _Vienna_ _STATE OR COUNTRY: _Austria_

11\. MAIDEN NAME: _Marie Léonie Huber (former married name: Moser)_

12\. BURIAL, CREMATION OR REMOVAL?: _Burial _PLACE: _Fulton st church_

13\. DATE OF DEATH: _Feb 8 1936_

14\. I HEREBY CERTIFY, THAT I TOOK CHARGE OF THE REMAINS DESCRIBED ABOVE (SIGN): _Johnson Smith_

15\. THE PRINCIPAL CAUSE OF DEATH AND RELATED CAUSES OF IMPORTANCE, IN ORDER OF ONSET, WERE AS FOLLOWS: _Blunt force trauma, blood loss_

16\. IF DEATH WAS DUE TO EXTERNAL CAUSES (VIOLENCE) FILL IN THE FOLLOWING:  
ACCIDENT, SUICIDE, OR HOMICIDE?: _Homicide  
_DATE OF INJURY: _Feb 8 1936_

CORONER SIGNATURE: _Johnson Smith_

* * *

The next time Alice saw Steve was at the funeral.

It had only been a week, but the world had changed and Steve hadn't been able to see her. Alice had been at the police station, at the morgue, at the city hall, Harlem, a hotel. Whisked around in a blur of details, questions, and though she tried to cling to her brother he kept slipping out of her fingers. And Steve had been sick. His mom took him to the Moser-Johnson house three times, but after the third time no one answered she put him back to bed and told him to wait. Bucky came to sit by Steve's side, his eyes red.

The music that weaved through Alice's thoughts fell still.

_Rammed off the road_, they said. A witness said they'd seen the two cars pulled up next to each other at an intersection, saw the driver see Marie and Matthias together. _Waited, then drove up and ran them off the road._

_Unlikely we'll catch him._

Alice didn't scream. Didn't cry unless she was alone. She listened with a calm face, only the deep shadows beneath her eyes betraying that there was anything going on in her head at all.

* * *

Steve, his mom, and Bucky were among the first to arrive at the church for Marie's funeral, hoping to see Alice before it started. But the front row was empty.

Marie and Matthias were to have separate funerals – they'd had to attend different churches after all. As they'd had to be separate in life, so they'd be separate in death. Matthias's funeral was in a few days.

The church sighed and breathed with whispers. It was a clear, sharp day outside, but the priest had still lit candles up and down the pews. His face was drawn long and old.

Alice and Tom arrived a few minutes before the service began. Alice wore a long black dress and Tom clutched her and his aunt Molly's hands, wearing a black suit with the sleeves rolled up to fit him. His eyes were wide and scared.

Steve felt like he'd been punched in the gut when he saw Alice. She'd been sick when he last saw her, but that was nothing to how she looked now: her face was lined with shadows and she pressed her lips tight together as she looked up to see the full church. Her eyes were lined with red. And she still looked completely, heartbreakingly beautiful.

He was so absorbed by Alice that he didn't notice the man by her side for a few moments: he was tall and stately, wearing a finer suit than anyone else in the church. He had finely-combed blonde hair and dark brows, and a narrow, pointed nose. He stood close to Alice's side.

Steve frowned.

Alice, Tom, Molly, the strange man and some other members of Matthias's family made their way down the middle of the pews. Members of the congregation stood to pause them for a moment, to murmur words of grief and consolation.

When they reached the third row Bucky stood bolt upright and stepped into the aisle to meet Alice's eyes. At the sight of him Alice fell still and something like wariness slipped out of the tense line of her shoulders.

Bucky wordlessly pulled her in for a hug. He dwarfed her, as if Alice had shrunk in the past week. The man accompanying Alice watched with flat brown eyes.

Steve was there when Bucky and Alice pulled apart. Alice barely saw him before she was hugging him, her left hand digging tight between his shoulderblades as if he'd try to let her go. Her other hand still gripped Tom's.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured, half muffled by her shoulder. Alice clung to him tighter.

Someone cleared their throat softly. They pulled apart.

Alice looked as if the hug had sapped at her hard, impenetrable shell, turning it as fragile as the stained glass in the church window. She glanced from Steve, to Bucky, to the man standing over her shoulder.

"This is my uncle," she explained in a low voice. "Josef Huber. My mother's brother. He flew over from Austria when… when he got the telegram."

_Flew_. Steve looked up into the man's face, though the man did not look back at him. He must be really rich. Or famous. Alice had never spoken much about her family back in Austria.

Then the uncle steered her away down the aisle. Steve's hands felt numb. There'd been so much he'd wanted to say to her this past week, and all he'd managed to get out was _I'm so sorry._

He fell back into his seat, his eyes on the back of Alice's blonde head, and his mom took his hand. On his other side, Bucky put a hand on his shoulder.

Alice's uncle gestured for her to sit at the end of the pew and then took the seat beside her, leaving no room. She took Tom and set him on her lap. The uncle's head turned away.

Then there were echoing footsteps as the priest made his way to the lectern, and the service started.

Steve didn't move for the whole service. He'd been restless all week, determined to _do something_, but then he had looked into Alice's eyes, held her against him, and he had felt her grief as strongly as if she'd shoved it into his chest. It froze him.

When the men stood to carry Marie's casket in, Steve didn't move. Bucky went, as did Alice's uncle, and Matthias's brother in law. Steve just sat there useless, looking at the back of Alice's head. He couldn't hold her hand, couldn't say anything to make this better, couldn't even carry her dead mother in to be buried.

Under the organ music and the heavy tone of the priest's voice, the church sounded like weeping. Steve had been to funerals before, but those were for _other people. _Old people. He'd felt the heaviness of them and felt their gravity but those had been about remembrance. This was tragedy.

The casket wasn't open. Steve knew what that meant: what lay inside was not for seeing. It was a simple wooden casket with white flowers laid on top. He'd smelled them as they went past – sweet, simple.

Alice didn't speak in the service; either she couldn't or she wouldn't. She sat at the end of her pew with her little brother curled up in her lap, her arms wrapped around him as if to protect him from something.

Molly stood and said a few words: _loving mother, worked hard to support her family. Kind to anyone who crossed her path. _Steve remembered Molly and Marie laughing over the turkey wishbone at Thanksgiving.

The uncle didn't speak. The priest had asked Steve's mom yesterday if she would speak on behalf of the church congregation and Marie's friends. She touched Alice's shoulder as she went up to speak, and delivered a loving eulogy worthy of the impact Marie had made here. Steve's mom looked down at Alice toward the end of her speech and her face crumpled. She walked back to her pew weeping.

When it was done, they all stood and walked Alice's mom out to the graveyard to be buried.

There was a hole waiting for her; the ground cold and hard. The congregation huddled around and shivered as the casket was lowered into the hole. A breeze blew through and made Steve shudder. His father was buried a few rows up from here.

Alice dropped a flower on the casket. Tom did too, his eyes wet and dark. He curled into his sister's side and she spread her hand over the back of his head. When they began pouring the dirt back in over Marie, Alice picked up Tom and held him tightly.

The congregation gathered and mingled, exchanging low words of sorrow as the hole in the ground began to fill. Steve and Bucky stood where they were for a few moments, giving the brother and sister at the edge of the hole in the ground a moment to hold each other.

They watched Molly approach, her face exhausted and bereft, and gently take Tom from Alice's arms. Alice's uncle stood only a few paces away.

Steve and Bucky exchanged a glance and then went to join their friend.

They didn't hug this time – Alice looked brittle and small, and Steve and Bucky both sensed that she might break if touched. The tightness around her eyes loosened at the sight of them, though.

For a few moments none of them spoke. The last time they'd all been together had been… the back of the tailor shop, Steve thought. Matthias had been hard at work with winter customers in the main room, Marie had stuck her head through the door to say hi as she went out to shop with Tom. The three of them had been playing cards and arguing over what radio station they wanted to listen to.

The moment hung heavy over all three of them.

"What's going to happen to you?" Bucky asked.

Steve wanted to thank him for finally voicing the question, but his words had dried up in his throat.

Alice reached up with shaky fingers to her eyes, but she wasn't crying. Her eyes were wet and desperate as she said carefully: "I don't have any family left in New York. My uncle," she half turned to the man, who took a step closer as she mentioned him, "Is my guardian now." She looked back but did not seem to see them. "I'm going back to Austria."

If this were a movie Steve would stagger back like a man struck by an arrow. He would rage and argue. But as it was he just stood, rooted to the spot, looking and looking and looking at her and waiting for her words to be a lie.

A tear escaped the corner of her eye, rolled down her face and dripped off the edge of her chin. It was alone. She swiped her cheek with twisted fingers.

"No," said Steve, sounding almost confused.

Alice finally looked fully at him. Her expression was _wrenched_. He'd never seen her like this – not even after the night Matthias got hurt. Something dark and overwhelming was welling inside her. "I don't have anywhere else to go-"

"There's Molly, Matthias's family, _us_-"

The uncle spoke directly to Steve for the first time: "The Johnsons are Thomas's next of kin," he said. His accent was heavier than Marie's had been. Steve had to compute 'Thomas' for a moment – no one called the boy that. The uncle continued: "But they - and anyone else - cannot legally take care of Alice. She'll come back to her family in Austria, where she'll be well taken care of."

"You're splitting them up?" asked Bucky with the horror of a sibling in his voice. The uncle turned to him to reply in a calm, reasonable tone.

As Bucky and the uncle spoke, Steve looked back to Alice and finally, _finally _saw it: her hands had been moving almost constantly since they came over – fixing her coat, wiping away tears, but Steve had just assumed it was an anxious tic that had escaped her normally rigid self control. Even now her hand played at the sleeve of her coat, but he saw that it wasn't a sign of self comfort. Her fingers were crossed.

It was an old code. They hadn't used it for years, not since they'd been smaller and wanting to escape from the bore of adults milling around after church service. It meant _meet me in the courtyard._

Steve's eyes widened and he nodded. Alice's welling eyes cleared, and she uncrossed her fingers.

"So you see," her uncle said, turning to face the three of them in general rather than just Bucky, "This is what's best." He set his hand on Alice's shoulder and they turned away, heading for the priest.

Bucky watched them with an open mouth and limp hands. "She can't just _go_," he said. He turned to Steve. "Steve, I-"

"C'mon." Steve grabbed Bucky's sleeve and started pulling him through the mourners in the direction of the back gate that he knew led to the church courtyard. Their boots crunched on the gravel path.

"What? Where're we going?"

"Alice said to meet in the courtyard."

"When did she – oh, one of your codes." Bucky planted his feet, so Steve had to turn around with a furrow on his brow. They were a few yards away from the congregation in the graveyard. Bucky looked back at him with knowing dark eyes.

"Come on," Steve said, "I don't know how much time we'll have."

"You go."

"What?"

Bucky sighed. "You go. She wants to talk to you, punk, not me-"

"That's not-"

"I know, I know," Bucky made a quelling gesture. "But she won't have long, and it should be you. I'll be your lookout."

Steve's shoulders dropped. "Bucky."

"Go on." Bucky glanced over his shoulder and then back. "She's already slipped out, she'll be waiting for ya."

Steve looked back at his friend for another moment, his jaw clenched, then turned and hastened to the church courtyard door. Bucky watched him go.

Alice was, as Bucky had predicted, already waiting for Steve in the small courtyard behind the church. The courtyard seemed smaller than it ever had, enclosed by slate-grey brick walls. There wasn't much in here aside from a few shrubs and a pond. Weeds sprang through the gaps between cobblestones, and a fine sheet of ice covered the brown pond in the middle of the yard. They used to throw pebbles into that pond on mornings like this and watch the ice splinter. Their priest had taught them to shoot here, propping the target up against the sturdy church wall.

Alice shifted her weight from one foot to another, her arms wrapped around herself.

"Steve," she breathed as soon as he'd shut the wooden door behind him. Steve's boots echoed off the paving stones as he rushed over to her and took both her hands in his. They'd never held each other like this before.

Alice's eyes were wild and large in her pale face. "Steve, I'm leaving today."

His stomach dropped. "_What_?"

"There's a ticket for a ship booked, he says it has to be today, Steve, I…"

"No, but-" His head reeled, this was too much too soon. He wanted time. He wanted to sit with her and hold her as she cried and let her slowly, slowly, open up to him. This wasn't fair. "Why today?"

"I don't know. He took care of everything." Alice pulled her hands out of his to grip her head. Her breath came in a sharp gasp. "He can't take Tom," she said in a high, breaking voice. "And I can't stay with him. Steve, he's only _seven-_"

"I know," Steve said. Tears prickled at his eyes and he reached out – his hand settled on her arm. "I know, I'm so sorry." He felt so useless. Couldn't he say anything else? "You know Molly and the others will take good care of him, you don't need to be scared for him."

"But I am scared, I am."

_So am I._

"You're…" he tried to think. "You're going to Austria, we can still write to each other. And you'll come back, you'll…" he was just wishing aloud now.

"I will," Alice said, and he realized tears were streaming from her eyes. He'd never seen her cry so freely, without even attempting to stop herself. It made his hand tighten on her arm, made him pull her into a hug so tight that he could feel her heartbeat. He drew in a breath that made his chest shudder.

"Steve," she whispered. "Please… can you go to Matthias's funeral for me?"

She was going to miss his funeral. Steve nodded, the movement brushing the side of her head. "Of course, I'll – I'll be there."

"Thank you," came her shaky voice.

She was so warm against him, but every part of her he touched was cold: the tips of her pale hair felt icy, her hand against the back of his neck was like cool glass. _She's leaving_, said his mind, but he could not bring himself to picture the reality of it – surely she should always be just a few blocks down the street. Always waiting for him at the post box on the way to school, always touching her toes to his on the carpet of his living room, always a melody of dots and dashes crackling through the radio.

"I don't want to leave," she whispered against the side of his neck.

"Don't," he said helplessly. This was not something he could fight.

And then she was pulling back, but she wasn't leaving, because her eyes were in front of him now – wide and green and crying.

He kissed her. Or she kissed him, he wasn't sure.

It wasn't how Steve hoped it would be (he could see it in his mind's eye: laughing, maybe a bit fumbling, free of desperation or grief), but it still flooded his chest with warmth and sent his heart pounding faster than was likely good for him considering his history of palpitations. Her lips crushed against his, not bruising but enough to make them both light up at the feeling. His fingers tangled in her hair. She moved her head slightly and he felt her wet eyelashes brush against his skin. His heart skipped.

As if she could sense the danger Alice leaned back with one palm laid on his bony chest.

A small smile broke out on her face and Steve's heart shattered and came back together in a second. "I'll be seeing you, Steve Rogers."

He swallowed. He'd imagined saying so many things to her but it was too soon, too sad. Yet it hurt not to say them. So he whispered: "Keep in touch."

"I promise." She kissed him again; long and sweet and barely there, then she slipped away.

* * *

THREE YEARS LATER  
September 3rd, 1939

Banging on the door.

"Mmf."

More banging. "Steve! I know you're in there, open up!"

Bucky.

Steve rolled over onto his back and squinted in the early morning gloom. The same water stain that had been there since he could remember sat brown and splotchy on the white plaster ceiling.

"Steve!"

Bucky'd get bored of knocking (banging) soon and get the spare key from under the brick outside. But even in his half-awake state Steve could hear a more urgent note in his voice than the usual 'I have plans for us today and you're not moving fast enough'.

So he swung his legs out of bed – the mattress springs creaked in protest – winced as his feet landed on the cold wooden floor, and then trudged through the apartment to the door. If it were anyone else he'd tell them to wait a minute so he could get changed out of his cotton pajamas and comb his hair, but Bucky sounded fit to break the door down at this point. Maybe he'd forgotten about the spare key.

"I'm coming!" Steve called grouchily. He passed the table with Alice's latest letter from Vienna still open upon it – he'd already replied, but he liked seeing her flowy cursive. A sprig of lavender from Mrs Bullock's herb patch on the roof stood crumbling in a jar in the middle of the table.

"Hurry up about it!" came Bucky's muffled voice.

Scowling, Steve tripped over the rug by the entrance and then flung the door open to Bucky's flustered face. Then his eyes lifted to the outside world, where he could just see dawn light filtering through the tenement buildings on the other side of the street. The sky was a dark, slumbering blue.

Steve frowned and checked his watch. "Bucky it's half past five in the morning, what the hell-"

A rustle of paper brought Steve's attention to the thing Bucky had brandished as soon as Steve opened the door: a newspaper. It smelled like fish – Bucky must've picked it up at the docks as his shift began and run all the way back here.

"Steve," Bucky said breathlessly.

Steve scanned the bold black print of the headline and his stomach plummeted so quickly he thought he might fall backwards.

"Steve," Bucky repeated. "Alice."

Steve nodded. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the headline:

** _GERMANY AT WAR._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh. Merry Christmas?


	20. PART TWO - Chapter Eleven

**Part Two: Soldiers**

_ **~ Be a single voice no more ~** _

* * *

New York Herald Tribune Headline: _Great Britain and France Declare War on Germany_

* * *

September 1939

"You gotta stay calm, Steve."

Steve cast a glance sideways at Bucky. Bucky's hands twisted as he sat on the stoop outside Steve's tenement building, and tired shadows hung under his eyes, and he still thought he could tell Steve to _stay calm. _Steve couldn't stop his knee bouncing where he sat.

He ignored Bucky's advice. "My last letter was…" he counted, "three days before they invaded Poland. They wouldn't have shut down all the post, would they? There hasn't been any action in Austria either, there can't have been."

Bucky sighed and lowered his head. They were both exhausted after three weeks of absolute silence from Alice, and from waking up at five every morning to have this exact same conversation before the postman arrived. The postman was used to seeing them sitting there by now, and told them straight away whether there was anything for Steve. Every morning he'd rest his bike against the wall, look up with a grimace and say: "Sorry boys."

Steve rubbed sleep out of his eyes with the heels of his palms.

"There's plenty of reasons why you haven't gotten a letter yet," Bucky said. "The post could be delayed. Could have been redirected somewhere by mistake. Could be they _have _halted the mail-"

"But why would they halt the mail to the US?" Steve asked. He rubbed his hands together to fight off the chill. "We're not at war with them."

The news had come just a few days after the start of the war in Europe. The US had proclaimed its neutrality, and Steve had been torn between indignation and relief. _Surely that's better for Alice, _Bucky had said when he heard. _We don't want our Air Corps dropping bombs on her._

Steve felt ill again at the thought. And yet the idea that his country wouldn't step in to stop the Germans invading surrounding countries made him frustrated.

Bucky sighed again. "Just because we're not at war with them doesn't mean they trust us," he said. "Anyway, it could be that Alice just hasn't gotten around to writing yet. Could be busy. Could be working on getting out of Austria, maybe."

_If only. _Steve could hope, but he knew Alice wouldn't leave. Not yet.

The squeak of a bicycle at the other end of the street made Bucky and Steve's heads jerk up.

"Don't get your hopes up," Bucky warned.

"I won't," Steve lied as his knee started bouncing faster.

A minute later the postman cycled up to the front of the tenement, dressed in his smart uniform and cap with a hessian bag slung over his shoulder. He squeaked to a halt in front of the stoop, casting a glint-eyed glance their way, and before he'd even gotten off his bike he pulled a letter out of his bag.

Steve's stomach swooped and he shot to his feet. "It came?"

The postman leaned over with the letter. "Here ya go boys! Don't think it's the one you're after though."

Steve fumbled the envelope out of the postman's hands and flipped it to look at the return address:

_The Thomas Cook Office  
Lisbon, Portugal  
PO Box 506_

Steve's face fell and his buzzing nerves went cold. Bucky glanced over his shoulder and frowned.

The postman pulled out the rest of the letters for the tenement and hopped off his bike to slot them into the correct letterboxes. "Sorry boys," he said over his shoulder. When he turned around again he observed: "Must be some sweetheart to have you out here every morning."

"She is," Bucky said before Steve could correct the man. Steve glowered at him and Bucky just shrugged, unapologetic.

When the postman cycled off again, Steve frowned down at the letter. "I don't know anyone in Lisbon, do I?"

"Sure it's for you?"

Steve rechecked the front of the envelope, which sure enough had his name and address written in flowing handwriting. Handwriting that looked familiar.

He tore the envelope right there on the stoop, almost ripped the letter within as he yanked it out, and ran wild eyes over the first line.

It felt as if a red-hot coil twisted in her gut. "It's her!"

Bucky stood up with wide eyes. "What? She's in Lisbon?" He came over and tried to take the letter out of Steve's hands, but Steve fended him off.

"It's… she's okay," he breathed, heart suddenly pounding.

"What's she doing in Lisbon? Did she-"

"I'm reading it, I'm reading it!"

"Well read it out loud, then-"

"_Alright_," Steve said as he flapped a hand at Bucky. He cleared his throat, tore his eyes back up the page, and began to read.

_September <strike>2nd</strike> _ _24__th_ _, 1939  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_I'm safe!_

_Now that's out of the way, I have a lot to tell you. First, this is the letter I wrote on my birthday, the 2__nd_ _:_

_Dear Steve,_

_Yesterday Germany invaded Poland. Today I turned 21. My uncle threw a huge party in one of the biggest social halls in Vienna, though it was difficult to tell at times whether the party was for me or for Germany. He kept saying 'Germany has grown into adulthood beside my niece, the two of them stepping out into the world and proclaiming their divine glory.'_

_I'm not certain he thinks much of my 'divine glory'._

_People shook my hand and kissed my cheeks, told me I looked beautiful and congratulated me on my 'fortuitous birthday'._

_To be honest I don't remember a lot of it. I'm still in shock, I think, that this is actually happening: Germany has taken Poland against all expectations. Great Britain has delivered an ultimatum, and I don't know yet where that will lead. The German troops haven't stopped._

_I have a very clear memory of standing in the middle of that hall in a stiff, uncomfortable silver dress, holding a glass of champagne, thinking 'how on earth did I end up here?'_

_So, that's what I meant to write you on the 2__nd_ _. But on the 3__rd_ _, four countries declared war on Germany: the UK, France, Australia, and New Zealand. Since then, South Africa has also declared war. Thankfully (more for you than for me), the US said it'll stay neutral._

_It's happening. I kept telling people it wouldn't, but I now realize that was just my own wishful, naive hope. The German Army (which includes the Austrian Army now) is tearing through Poland toward Warsaw as I write._

_The whole country is buzzing. Wherever I go, no one can speak of anything else but the _ _ war. _ _ Whether they're excited about the Third Reich becoming an empire or terrified of what wartime will bring, it's on their minds and their tongues._

_Already things are changing. There's talk of conscription. There are volunteer sign-up sheets for munitions factories and ration pack assembly lines. Hitler Youth march up and down the streets, singing songs as if they've already won a victory. Behind them march the troops. The grocery shelves are empty. It's as if the city is celebrating and bunkering down all at once._

_I've heard that the mail might be censored, and that brings me to the unusual envelope you've received. A friend put me in contact with someone in Lisbon, who is offering to forward mail to other countries. The US isn't at war with Germany, but I'm certain mail to the US will be censored heavily from here on out. To continue writing to me, address an envelope the same way I have, to the Thomas Cook office in Lisbon (Portugal is neutral), post office box 506, and write my name at the top of the letter itself. They'll send it on to me (or rather, Jilí). It will take longer, but that way we can keep communicating in privacy._

_How are you? What have I missed? Have things changed much in New York?_

_Yours,  
Alice._

Steve said that last part in a rush, as if the air in his lungs was deflating. When he'd finished his hand with the letter fell limp by his side.

_She's safe._

Bucky stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the tenement letter box. His brow furrowed. "Idiot."

Steve blinked. "What? Why?"

Bucky just gestured vaguely in the air, then dropped his arm. A moment later he sat on the stoop again. "Just… idiot."

Steve sat down beside him. Sunlight began to creep through the chilled Brooklyn streets, and in the distance a bird sang. Steve felt stunned, disconnected from his body. He thought he understood what Bucky meant. _Alice won't let this push her away. This will make her want to stay more than ever._

He reached up and ran his hands over his face. The paper in his hand crinkled.

"What do we do?" He looked over to Bucky.

Bucky opened his mouth, gestured to the letter, shut his mouth again. "I don't think there's anything we _can _do. Ask Germany to stop invading Poland?"

"A whole bunch of countries have already tried that." Steve's throat constricted. "Now they're going to ask again. But with guns."

Bucky's head dropped into his hands. "She'll be safe." He said it haltingly, then nodded to himself and said: "She will be. She knows how to stay out of trouble, keep her head down. She'll be safe."

Steve thought of the last war and how it had torn Europe to shreds. No country, no person untouched. No one could guarantee their own safety now. He held up the letter again and traced her words. First the _I'm safe! _Then his fingertips trailed down to where she'd written _Yours_.

_For how much longer?_

Bucky leaned back and blew out a breath. "You'd better get writing to Lisbon, then."

* * *

Excerpt from '_Culture of the Third Reich' _by Maureen Einrich (1999), chapter 7 (_Notable Musicians_), p. 88

_One cannot describe the Siren's career without describing the war. While it is true that Moser was performing in Vienna years before Germany's invasion of Poland, her fame did not truly soar until the height of the war years. 1939 was the real origin of what we know as the Siren. Of course, this was not to last._

* * *

October 1939

A knock at the door.

Alice looked up from where she'd been fastening her heeled shoes. "Enter."

The white-washed door swung open on its well-oiled hinges to reveal the housemaid, Julia. She was a light haired, light eyed girl and she looked in warily. "Your uncle would like to speak with you, _Frä__u__lein_."

Julia might well be wary – twice before she'd been tasked with ensuring that Alice stay inside the house, only for Alice to sneak out the window. Julia was a little older than Alice and the two of them had a strange, unspoken kind of rivalry. Alice didn't begrudge Julia doing her job, but she did not trust her. Julia seemed half in awe, half irritated by her younger mistress.

"I'll be out in a moment," Alice replied evenly. She stood up and turned to the mirror to check her appearance; her fine grey cotton dress was just visible under the thick coat that ended below her knees. Stockinged ankles led into sensible black pumps. Her shoulder-length blonde hair hung in carefully-ironed curls around her calm, watchful face.

Julia eyed Alice a moment. "Are you going somewhere, miss?"

"Yes." Alice didn't take her eyes off her own reflection.

Julia bowed her head and closed the door behind her.

Alice's brow lowered when she heard the door shut, and she looked away from the mirror. Her uncle didn't often seek her company. They each drifted through this house in the hopes of not running into each other. But she was still his songbird, so he brought her out to parties and performances, and fed and watered her in this gilded cage. Alice spared a glance for her room – it really was very fine, with a rich blue and white cream carpet, velvet settees, an ornate four-poster bed and dresser table. Her phonograph sat on a low counter beside the dresser. Alice had promised herself never to get used to this luxury, but in some ways she had. She was used to selecting well-made, warm clothes from her wardrobe each morning, patting expensive cosmetics on her face before performances, having a maid and a cook and a driver to take her around town.

Sometimes she came back to her bedroom and it didn't feel like _hers. _What with the fine dressings and Julia cleaning, it more often looked like a nice hotel room. Only small traces of Alice could be seen – the copy of _Murder on the Orient Express _with its cracked spine on the bedside table, the pen and almost-dry inkwell on the dressing table, the stacks of records beside the phonograph (and that wasn't even counting the ones she'd hidden).

Their house in Vienna was… not quite a mansion, but a very nice house on the corner of the street. Alice's bedroom had two wide windows set into the outward-facing walls, overlooking the street below and beyond; the buildings of Vienna stretching away into the distance. She could just see the spire of St Stephen's cathedral.

Alice fastened her coat buttons as she looked out the window. The city sounds of puttering engines and marching feet were muted in here, as were the sounds of china clinking in the room beyond. It was if this room was another universe that just looked out on the world beyond. And Alice stood within it, unmoving, a shaft of sunlight illuminating motes of dust in the air.

Another knock at the door. "_Frä__u__lein_?"

Alice's brow lowered. "I'm coming."

She pushed open her bedroom door to the universe beyond, and strode down the hallway toward the large living room. This was an imposing, open space with a brass and crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a grand piano in the corner. Tall windows overlooked the avenue outside. Her uncle sat where he usually did; in the sturdy armchair by the fireplace, with the ornate tapestry hanging behind it. The tapestry depicted some scene of ancient battle: a commander brandishing his weapon as around him a melee of soldiers and flags unfolded. It was bright-colored, almost cheery.

Alice preferred the wrought iron chairs out on the balcony, herself, but her uncle seemed to prefer seating himself amongst all that splendor and grandeur. It suited him.

Her uncle looked up from his newspaper as Alice walked in, his brown eyes revealing nothing at the sight of her. A cigarette dangled from his fingers. Alice often tried to find hints of her mother in his face, but could see none; his nose was angular, his brow heavy and serious, his pale hair slicked neatly to the sides. He always dressed in a fine dark suit and a starched shirt. There was none of her mother's kindness or bravery in his expression, none of her sadness either. Alice would have to remain comforted by the fact that people often told her she looked like her mother – not that those people cared to acknowledge who Marie Moser had become, or who she had married.

"You asked for me?" Alice asked politely. She glanced away to fix the cuff of her coat.

Her uncle pulled his timepiece from his breast pocket and eyed it. "You're going out?"

"Yes."

Alice gave no more information, and her uncle didn't ask for any. She supposed he must have some idea that she was doing something he'd disapprove of, but she never got caught and he must have known she wouldn't let him push much further than he already had, so he never intervened. As long as she kept singing, that was enough for him.

Her uncle cleared his throat and leaned back. "I'd like to discuss the performance at the _Konzerthaus _in two weeks. Pichler has written another song that I think we should debut at that performance. I'll have the sheet music ready for you this afternoon."

Alice stiffened. Pichler. She wondered whether he was actually working for the propaganda department now, or just sucking up still. She knew what songs from him would sound like. He had an ear for tune, certainly, but his heart belonged to the Nazis. Alice had already sung three songs for Herr Goebbel's department. She still heard them on the radio sometimes, stirring up national spirit and support for the war. Convincing the public to forgive the rationing of food. Convincing them to love Germany and all the Fatherland stood for.

Hearing her voice on the radio singing those songs felt strange. Alice still didn't understand how she'd sung the words so sweetly when they tasted like poison.

_For your freedom_, came her own steady voice. _So you can help._

Alice swallowed. "I'll expect it this afternoon then."

Her uncle eyed her for a few moments, then nodded.

Alice turned on her heel and strode right past the waiting Julia, through the hallway, down the stairs, and out the front door of the house into the sunlight outside.

When the fresh breeze blew on her face, Alice closed her eyes and took a deep breath in. She never realized how _stifling _that house felt until she was out of it.

She opened her eyes and instantly the feeling crept back over her. Directly across the street a huge poster was pasted on the side of a building: it depicted a tall, proud eagle sat atop a set of golden laurels with the swastika prominently displayed. The poster read _Rally of Peace. 1939. _A red cross had been taped over it.

They'd cancelled that rally when the war broke out.

Alice cleared her throat and turned down the street. After a month of war, she could not say that life had changed so much. She still felt a creeping fear and the ominous sense that something huge was about to happen, but she'd felt that way for… well, it had been coming on for years now. Perhaps she'd been at war longer than she realized.

Mostly, the war was happening elsewhere. Japan was launching offensives on China. Warsaw had surrendered to Germany after days of devastation and violence, and thus Poland fell to the Third Reich. Alice did not think they would get to have a plebiscite. Germany was now firing on the French Maginot line. The rest of Europe was doubling down, shoring up its defenses, no doubt very nervous. British troops had entered Belgium and France. The battle had begun in earnest at sea, with air attacks and a British battleship being sunk by a German U-boat in Scotland. Russia crept closer westward, though ostensibly they were still allies with Germany.

Every day something new seemed to happen, and Alice kept waiting for _it. _The thing that would change everything, turn everything back the way it had once been. Maybe if America stepped in. Or Russia changed alliances. But the world just… kept on keeping on. If Alice wanted to she could pretend that none of this was happening, that no one was in danger or disappearing in the night. It wasn't like the rationing affected her uncle's household.

Alice kept her hands in her pockets and her head high as she strode through Vienna's streets. She'd never walked this route before. She didn't make a habit of going the same way twice.

Vienna felt very different from New York. Both cities held a sense of history, but Vienna's history was the older kind, of kings and empires and the black plague and the catholic church. Where New York had pavement, Vienna had cobblestones. The cities had different spirits. Alice could sense them – Vienna was ancient, regal and refined while New York was the bustling, burning heart of youth. She loved them both.

Black cars drove past Alice as she made her way through the city, spewing fumes that made her nose wrinkle, and other pedestrians walked up and down the sidewalks between the tall, grand buildings on either side of the avenue. Occasionally they glanced at Alice as she passed and their eyes went wide with recognition.

Alice knew who they saw: _Die Sirene_, in her elegant clothes with her golden hair shining on top of her head: aloof and beautiful and talented. She let them believe that she was that person. It kept them distant from her.

Ten minutes later, when she spotted a familiar bakery at the other end of the street, she turned left into a narrower alleyway. The buildings weren't so grand here. One burnt-out shop still bore scarlet graffiti of stars-of-David and the word _Jude._

Alice averted her eyes just like everyone else did. The side of her face prickled as she walked past it.

She approached a familiar black-painted door, let herself in with the key she hid amongst the keys for her uncle's house, then climbed up the narrow, dark stairs to the third landing. She knocked on door _302, _though softly. They were trying not to let the neighbors know that anyone lived there.

Alice felt, rather than heard, the presence behind the peephole, and a moment later the door swung open to reveal Jilí_. _Alice smiled at her friend and felt a flutter of satisfaction when Jilí smiled back. She didn't always do that these days.

In appearance, Jilí was Alice's opposite in many ways. Where Alice's hair was so pale it looked almost white some days, Jilí's hair was ink black and thick (from her Romani grandmother and mother, Jilí often said). Dark brows arched over her deep brown eyes, and her expressive face was now open in a tired smile. Jilí stood a head shorter than Alice but had acres of rigid determination to make up for it. In Alice's mind Jilí was a _presence _– you could not ignore her when she was in the room.

Jilí tipped her head at Alice, asked "Are you coming in or not?" in English and then turned on her heel to stride back into the apartment. They spoke English to each other usually, since Jilí always wanted to learn.

Laughing under her breath, Alice followed her friend in.

Jilí's apartment stood in stark relief to Alice's uncle's house, and was poorer even than Alice's tenement flat in Brooklyn had been. There wasn't much to it aside from a cot in the corner, a sparse kitchen with a coal stove and kettle, a table, and floorboards. Jilí and Franz had moved here after Kristallnacht in an effort to go further unnoticed, and Alice had bought it when Jews were forbidden from owning property. Still, she didn't think of it as _her _apartment.

Alice shrugged off her coat, hung it on a nail in the wall, and ran her hands through her hair to brush away the October chill.

"I've got another letter for you, finally," Jilí called over her shoulder.

"Truly?" Alice rushed to the cluttered table and sure enough right in the center sat a thick letter addressed to Jilí from Lisbon, in Steve's elegant handwriting. Alice picked it up and pressed her fingers to the paper, breathing in the smell of ink. The Thomas Cook service gave her peace of mind but it took a lot longer than regular air mail had. She'd sent her last letter to Steve two and a half weeks ago. "Thank you, Jilí."

Alice turned to put the letter in her coat's inside pocket. She'd read it when she got home. "Have you heard anything from the Lehners?" she asked her friend's turned back. Jilí put a kettle on the stove.

"No," Jilí replied. "So either they got out or they were caught, but either way there is nothing more we can do for them."

Alice pressed her lips together and went to peek through the crack in the curtains over the window. "Hope's a funny thing," she murmured.

"You singers and your lofty notions," Jilí responded mock-chidingly. "Come and sit, stop fussing."

"I don't fuss," Alice said, but she came to sit at the simple wooden table across from Jilí. "How are you?"

"See? Fussing." Jilí pulled a pair of men's trousers from the pile of clothes on the table, a spool of thread, and started mending a tear in the seams. Her eyes didn't lift to Alice's. "I'm fine, as always. You don't need to ask every time."

"Yes I do." Alice took a moth-bitten child's shirt from the pile and selected a scrap of fabric to darn it with. The fabric didn't match, but it didn't matter. Alice almost smiled at the thought of what Matthias would say if he saw the tailoring she was doing now. Even in the heights of the Depression he'd made sure the quality of his work never wavered.

"How are you, then?" Jilí asked. Her eyes darted up from her work.

"Fine," Alice replied. Then: "I'll be performing a new patriotic song soon." Now it was her turn to avoid Jilí's dark gaze.

"You made your choice, Alice. I know you don't mean what those songs say-"

"But no one else knows that," Alice said, keeping her voice purposefully soft. Her fingers danced around the needle. "Am I not just as bad as the rest of them who shout the slogans and praise the Fatherland?"

"Do you think you are?" Jilí asked. The two of them sat in silence for a few moments, working across from each other at the table in the bare wooden room.

"I hope not," Alice murmured. "But surely what I really feel starts to matter less, the more public I am in my support."

"I don't care what you do in public," Jilí said, suddenly vehement. Alice looked up into her hard brown eyes. "It's what that work allows you to do here, and beyond, that counts."

Alice drew in a slow breath through her nose and nodded. "You're right."

"Usually."

A smile crept across Alice's lips. "Everyone's okay?"

"As of last night, yes. We'll need to run another food collection tonight though. How are your lot in Berlin and Hamburg doing?"

Alice nodded by way of reply. She and Jilí had spent most of their waking hours lately into protecting people; they kept an eye on about fifteen families in Vienna alone, and Alice had made more 'friends' in a couple of other cities. Friends she supported with food, money, and sometimes papers from her Viennese friend Alma, an artist turned counterfeiter. Alice had met them through the music club, or through Jilí and Franz's group of friends, or from meeting them on her walks through the city at night. Her circle of friends grew larger every week. There was always someone in need of help.

It was just like having a normal friendship group, except for all the illegal help she gave them and the fact that every few months, someone was arrested and deported.

Jilí cleared her throat. "I spoke with Clara Meier from the practice the other day. She said she's worried about some of the children who've gone through there." Alice looked up from her darning. "She says she's been dealing with patient forms with three red cross marks on them – each one from a different doctor."

Alice set down her work. She'd heard of this too. Secrets in Austria inevitably turned into open rumor. "The children disappear," she said. Jilí nodded.

Alice's stomach dropped. She had barely believed the rumor the first time she heard it. She'd overheard a gossipy conversation at the opera, hardly a reliable source, but if Jilí was getting this from a nurse… "Where are they going?" she breathed.

Jilí leveled a look at her.

Alice's lips pressed tight again. "We must find out more."

"How?"

"The usual ways. You ask around where you can. Ask Clara if she can find out more, maybe get us some names. I'll do some snooping on my end, there's always a few surgeons and administrators at my uncle's parties. I'll see about visiting a children's ward sometime as the Siren."

Jilí cast her another long look.

Alice's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"I just thought you'd tell me to _be careful _again. Play it slow, wait for information to come to me. That's normally your advice, no?"

Alice set down the newly-darned shirt and frowned at her friend. Jilí wasn't wrong. She and her 'friends' had been focusing mainly on protection – keeping people safe and fed, getting them out when things got too bad for them. But they moved in shadows, never put their name to anything. No one who was anyone even knew that Alice was friends with any 'unsavory person', let alone a Romani woman who'd married a Jew.

She picked up a new shirt. "Being careful goes without saying. But if what Clara says is true… we must see if we can do something. What if there's a child with two red crosses on their form? If we can warn just one person-"

"Alright, alright," Jilí said with a quelling gesture. She took up another piece of clothing, this time a greatcoat. These clothes were to go to the Koglers, who had been living with their neighbors since August. Alice and Jilí collected clothes and food from anyone who would give them, and often Alice stole from her uncle.

The kettle whistled and Jilí stood and went to the tiny kitchen to tend to it. "What about you?" she called over her shoulder. "Any news from your end?"

"Aside from the usual rubbish about the war and Hitler's glorious army," Alice sighed, "Yes, actually. We went to Belvedere Palace on the weekend and the generals there were talking about a new push against the Jews."

Jilí went still with the kettle still poised in her hand.

"Now that they have Poland they are saying that _SS-Obersturmbannführer_ Eichmann has been put in charge of the Jewish Emigration office, and it's not going to be _voluntary_ emigration anymore." Alice knew Adolf Eichmann, he'd been to a few of her performances back when he lived in Vienna. He'd been posted to Berlin now.

She continued: "They're going to just _move_ quotas of people out of the Reich. No arrests or _strong encouragement_ anymore, just deportation. I only heard concrete plans for Moravia and Poland, but it sounds like this is just the beginning of something larger." Alice had paid very, very careful attention to the floating conversations she'd passed through and taken part in that night, keeping her expression no more interested than if they had been discussing the theater. But now her face was as grave as stone.

Jilí finished pouring and slowly picked up the teacups. "Where will they send them?"

"East," Alice replied. "Poland. Further."

Jilí set a teacup in front of Alice. The steaming surface shivered. "I will warn everyone I see."

"As will I," Alice nodded. "I'll see if I can find out when this policy may come to Vienna. Maybe we could see about moving them to the forest or the countryside for a while."

"For how long?" Jilí asked wryly. "No, the best chance they have now is to go underground. Live in basements, attics, in shut-up houses. Their best chance is that the police think they have already left. They will only be more visible in the countryside."

"I'll pass it on." Alice sipped the tea, but all she tasted was ash. She'd started off providing food and blankets and warning people when the police might come knocking on doors. She did not know quite how it had evolved to _this. _She didn't know how to protect people from governments and nations. The problem had very suddenly gotten much larger than she knew what to do with. But she still felt a _pull. _As if there were some solution she hadn't found yet.

She ran a thumb down the side of her teacup. "What else can we do?"

Jilí took a sip of her tea and then looked into its brown depths. She did not reply.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_What Was Life Like for Jews in the Early Years of the War?_' by Howard Muller (2002)

_Historians are often divided on the topic of when, exactly, the Nazi party's plans for Jewish people evolved to extinction, but it is clear that the 'Holocaust' as we know it did not begin until early 1941. Jewish people were by no means safe, of course, in the wake of Kristallnacht and ever-more-violent retaliations against their people. After the annexation of Poland in 1939, the Jewish population there were forced into ghettos, governed by Jewish Councils and rife with disease and starvation._

_Back in the Fatherlands, authorities began a Euthanasia Program against patients with mental illness and disabilities (in what many historians see as a precursor to the Holocaust), and Jews and other minorities faced increasingly drastic measures to force them out of the 'pure' Aryan neighborhoods. Many remained, whether out of lack of opportunity, fear of worse treatment elsewhere, or loyalty to their homes. They could not have known what was on its way._

* * *

Alice and Jilí talked about other things after that. It was too much to think only of the war day in, day out. Alice managed to make Jilí laugh. After a few hours Alice kissed her friend on the cheek, fetched her coat and walked quietly down the stairs again.

She took an entirely new route back home this time, cutting through the markets. She buried her hands in her pockets and tilted her head down so less people would recognize her. On her way back up her home street, a troop of soldiers in trucks drove past. A few of them shouted her way, and moments later their laughter faded along with the engine exhaust.

Alice felt very small as she let herself back into her uncle's house.

No one else was home, which made the stifling pressure inside the house dissipate. Alice went straight into her room, shrugged out of her coat after fetching Steve's letter, and went to her dresser.

She allowed herself a few moments to get one of her hidden jazz records and set it up on the phonograph. Then she pulled out one of her dressing table drawers, carefully took out the bottles of perfume, and eased the false bottom out of the drawer. The smells of paper and ink drifted into the air as Steve's old letters were revealed.

Alice set the new letter on the dresser and slit it open with her paperknife.

The moment she saw his words – _Dear Alice_ – she smiled and leaned back against her chair. She had to force herself not to read too quickly; she only got the chance to read a letter of his for the first time once, and she wanted to savor it.

Steve told her about home. He told her about the end of the baseball season and the Dodger's hard luck, about Mrs Symanski at the post office and Bucky's latest outrageousness and about her brother. Tom wrote Alice letters with more frequency as his literacy got better, through the Thomas Cook office, but Alice liked hearing about him from Steve as well. Steve had started a new job, and his kitchen pipes were leaking. He sketched in the margins, as he always did: Bucky clinging to the side of the Brooklyn trolley with a wild gleam in his eyes, bagels in a shop window, a rough sketch of children playing in the street, a comedy doodle of himself battling his kitchen pipes like Hercules throttling some many-headed serpent. Alice wished she could illustrate her life for him as vividly as he did for her.

Alice finished the letter with an uncontrollable grin on her face. It had been over three years since she'd last seen Steve but the image of him in her mind had continued to grow – maybe not the physical image of him, but the way she perceived him. He'd grown even more serious with age, and letter-writing had brought out a more thoughtful side to him. It was as if through letter writing she was allowed access to the part of him that made art.

She wondered if he looked different.

Alice pulled a few sheets of paper and immediately began writing out her reply. The longer she took to write and send it, the longer it would be until she would get his next letter. She paused more often as she wrote now, though. She'd been telling Steve less and less about the hard parts of her life. She didn't tell him about the awful songs she sang, or the people she spent so long listening to at parties. She told him very little about her 'friends', or what she and Jilí got up to at night. She skimmed details. One side effect of this was that in writing to Steve, she was forced to reflect on the happier parts of her life: how she'd gotten Jilí to smile. How she'd started feeding jellied fish to the litter of kittens that had shown up in the street beside her house. How it felt to bring people to tears with her song.

Once, after a performance, Alice had planted a red kiss beside her name at the bottom of a letter. She'd regretted it as soon as she put it in the letterbox but it was too late by then.

Steve never mentioned it.

Alice skimmed through her latest visit with Jilí (though she chose to include the clothes-mending they'd been doing. She wanted to tell Steve how it had reminded her of Matthias), then sat back, let out a long breath and looked out the window. The light was fading. Her knee bounced.

After she'd been looking out the window who knew how long, she turned back to her letter.

_I have this dream that my parents never moved to New York_, she wrote in a more careful hand. _That we stayed in Austria. I never went to Brooklyn Junior High, my little brother was never born, I never met you and Bucky. In that dream-world, this strange Nazi movement creeps over me like a tide and I succumb to it. I join the girls section of the Hitler Youth, I sing the songs and I weep with excitement when Hitler appears in Vienna. I see Jilí__ and Franz on the street, and I curl my lip at them._

_Is that all it would take? For me to simply live in a different place at a different time? Would I become that person: a person like I see all around me. A person my uncle would love._

_My other, stranger dreams are a relief after that one. I dream of velvety darkness, golden lights, and voices so sweet it's like I've gone to heaven._

Alice wrote a few more lines about useless things, then signed her name and folded the letter. She ran a hand over her eyes, covering herself in darkness for a moment.

When she opened her eyes again she noticed that the light filtering through the window had gone golden and dusky. She checked the clock on the wall and decided to take a nap. She had to sneak out again tonight to help Jilí organize the food collection, and to warn as many people as she could about the upcoming deportation order.

But first she slipped the letter for Steve into an envelope, wrote his address, then put that envelope in a larger one bound for Lisbon. She tucked that letter into her coat and hid Steve's in the false bottom of her drawer. She could never bring herself to throw them away.

Her crimes concealed, Alice crawled into bed fully clothed and closed her eyes.

* * *

Excerpt from translated article '_D__as Geheimnis der Sirene [The Mystery of the Siren]' _by Hans Schruben (1965)

_Many artists and intellectuals fled Austria once war was declared in Europe, seeking safer shores in Britain or beyond, in the States. Certainly, it's possible that the Siren may have still had friends in America who could have helped her set up a new life. But the Siren did not leave. Perhaps, since she did not have family who would be put in danger by the outbreak of war, she did not feel the need to flee; her uncle, Josef Huber, was a titan in music industry, politics, and society, who had reason to celebrate Nazi domination rather than fear it._

_Perhaps, in the outbreak of war, the Siren saw an opportunity._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rather than inflict any more terrible google translate on you all, just assume that if the dialogue takes place in Austria, it's in German. I will let you know otherwise.
> 
> Thanks to the History Place's page on the Holocaust for the specific details that backed up my understanding of the early years of the war.
> 
> I am now rolling back to a weekly updating schedule, so Happy New Year and see you all again next weekend!


	21. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: mentions of euthanasia, depression, suicidal thoughts. It's a doozy.

1940

Alice had been right about the deportations. In the middle of October the SS had started taking Jewish families from their homes and deporting them on trains and trucks out of the country. It was no longer a secret by that point, even the international press knew they were being deported – out to Poland, was the word, to the ghettos, or to empty fields or reservations. _Anywhere but here,_ said a police chief laughingly at a party at Alice's uncle's house.

Eight of the twenty families Alice and Jilí looked out for were sent away.

Alice spent one night crying for them, and for Franz, and for the children with red crosses on their patient files, and the next night got to work again. They helped people find emptied-out homes to squat in, helped get food to those already hiding, helped others flee from the deportations: most of them heading toward Palestine.

The war marched ever on, with bombs dropped in Munich and the Thames. In November the Russians invaded Finland. Germany continued to snatch up the holdouts in Poland.

Alice performed Pichler's new song (called _Birds of Glory_, very obviously about the Luftwaffe air force) for the social elite in Vienna. As she sang she looked around at the room full of champagne glasses and pink, smiling faces and thought _How can we live like this while ravaging another country? While ravaging our own?_

After her song she accepted a glass of champagne and went to stand by the generals speaking to her father. When they turned to her she smiled prettily.

Christmas was strange. The Nazi party had been leaning away from Jesus as a whole for a while, given the whole Jewish thing, so the celebration was more about Germany than about Jesus's birth. It didn't affect Alice all that much, save for the fact that she sang Christmas carols with different lyrics and that her uncle put a swastika at the top of the Christmas tree instead of a star. Alice cut her own star out of newspaper and put it over the mantelpiece at Jilí's house. The two of them cooked a large dinner for a gathering of some of their friends, shivering in the poorly-heated room, and on her way home Alice tried not to notice the stores selling SS toy soldiers and toy tanks and Luftwaffe planes as Christmas gifts.

Steve's Christmas letter came three weeks late but he'd drawn her a picture of the Rockefeller tree (larger than ever this year), another of Bucky wearing an enormous beanie that slid over his eyes, and sent her a novel that had been banned in the Reich. Alice devoured the drawings, trying not to smudge the pencil with her fingertips, and gave the novel to one of her friends at the bakery once she'd finished it. She hoped Steve had liked the art book she'd sent him. It would be a while until she found out.

Tom's letter arrived a day later, full of colorful observations about Matthias's family and all the strange and wonderful things they'd done over the holiday. He was eleven now. Steve had sent her a drawing of him a while ago and Alice had burst into tears at the image. The small, bright-eyed toddler she'd known had grown tall, and frizzy-haired, with a quirky look of mischief about his eyes. He had gone almost half his life without his sister.

As they entered a new decade Alice watched skirmishes, victories, and losses unfold in the newspapers. Because that was all the war was so far – a series of headlines. No battles were being fought in Vienna, but the city continued to change all the same.

Alice realized, one day as she rushed to a house in a back alley of Vienna under the cover of darkness to check if the family inside had been arrested during the day, that she was drowning in desperation. The small things she had done to help people were not enough. Never enough.

She gave no hint of this in her letters to Steve.

In May, Alice woke up to the news that the German Army had invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands all at once. Her stomach turned over as her uncle read her the paper with excitement in his voice. She nodded, pale, then went back into her room and did not come out for the rest of the day.

_The world is falling apart around me_, she wrote to Steve. _I feel like everyone around me has gone crazy. Or maybe I'm the crazy one._

That same month Alice found out from a surgeon at one of her performance afterparties that the vanishing children (and adults as well, she'd found out) were going to Hartheim Castle. "Don't worry about that," he told her. "They know how to deal with conditions like theirs up there. Cripples, the feeble minded, that sort of thing."

Alice asked if she could maybe visit, but then her uncle appeared and whisked her away before the surgeon could reply. A cold stone sat in the pit of her belly for the rest of the evening. She didn't sleep that night.

She told everyone she could to get their disabled relatives out of the asylums and sanatoriums and take them home.

One by one, the countries the Nazis invaded fell like chess pieces. On June 14th the German Army entered Paris. Alice felt dizzy at the thought of it – she'd visited Paris twice before, and the thought of German tanks rolling down those streets turned her stomach.

She'd thought war was slow, fought in trenches over the course of months, not this greedy snapping up of territory with seemingly no resistance. At this rate the Germans could cover the world in a matter of years.

Alice thought of German tanks rolling through Brooklyn. She thought of the Germans looking at weak, diseased Steve Rogers and drawing three red crosses on his paperwork to send him away. She thought of the synagogue around the block from Matthias's tailor shop burning.

Alice's dreams were plagued by these images. She imagined the nightmare that Vienna had become played out on Brooklyn's streets. Sometimes her dreams would shimmer, becoming golden light and sweet song. A way to forget. It was tempting.

She kept her head down. She sang when asked to sing and smiled when asked to smile, and when she could she fled from the fine house on the corner of the street to go to Jilí's house and work until her fingernails bled and her heart ached: mending clothes, collecting food and money, wearing her boots thin walking from one place to another trying to help, help, help.

More people went missing.

At the end of June France signed an armistice with Germany, essentially surrendering, and Alice's uncle began to talk of touring there. She said nothing.

The next day the paper came, and the image on the front froze Alice in the middle of the living room.

The photograph was of the distinctive silhouette of the Eiffel Tower, but in front of it stood Adolf Hitler. He leaned against the bridge overlooking the tower with driving gloves in his hands and his Nazi cap on his head. And Alice knew, with every fiber of her being:

_This is wrong._

It was one of the first clear thoughts she'd had in ages, she realized, this sudden knowledge of _wrong. _It was fortifying.

With each country that had fallen, Alice had fallen further into some kind of intangible, murky depth. Everything that gave her joy was done in secret; listening to jazz, writing to Steve. Even her friends who she really loved were Romani, Jewish, _other. _Outsiders.

She used the fortification to develop a plan to get penicillin for Rupert, the youngest child of the Hofmanns, who were living in their cousin's garden shed. She ended up stealing the medicine herself after booking a checkup, and then got it to the family by handing it to one of the Hofmann's childrens' best friends who worked as a clerk at a shoe shine booth. Alice eyed the system all around her, the city churning away day by day, and worked out where the cracks were. _That is where I must slip through._

* * *

Steve had made friends with the mailman. The guy kept going on about his _sweetheart in Portugal_, and Steve didn't have the heart to let him down so he never corrected him.

"How's your sweetheart?" The mailman would ask, his mustache twitching with a smile.

"Missing home, I think," Steve would reply. It wasn't a lie.

He spent most of that year drawing art for the third most popular newspaper in Brooklyn and working as a drug store clerk. Every morning he grabbed the first most popular newspaper and devoured the news from Europe.

It felt so strange – each troop movement, each battle and political maneuver was something that affected Alice day to day. She never appeared in the news, but it still felt like he was reading about her.

The war felt distant in New York. Sometimes Steve would put down the paper and look at the people walking up and down the streets.

_Don't you care? _He wanted to yell at them. _Don't you care that there are thousands of people across the ocean hurting?_

But maybe he wouldn't if it wasn't Alice over there. No way to know.

Bucky kept setting Steve up on dates. He understood that Steve was all hung up on Alice, but he didn't see why Steve couldn't have fun and enjoy his life some.

_The war'll clear up soon_, Bucky would say as he slung an arm over Steve's shoulder. _Alice will be on a ship back to Brooklyn in no time._

Steve wished he had some way of knowing, some countdown he could check. But as the German troops rolled out across Europe he began to have a sick feeling in the back of his throat. _What if __this isn't a war_, he thought, _but the world changing forever?_

* * *

In Vienna, a woman spoke out.

Her name was Anna Wödl. Alice first met her outside Vienna City Hall. Alice had just been in to meet her acquaintance Hans in the records office, who didn't like Jewish people but sure liked gossiping about them. She walked out into the warm July sun and couldn't see for a moment. When her eyes got used to the light, Alice took a step back at the sight of a small crowd of people standing in the road outside the City Hall. When she realized they weren't Gestapo, she stepped forward curiously.

A woman with dark hair and intense eyes, maybe mid-thirties, approached her. "Will you sign this letter to the Reich Ministry of the Interior to prevent them from transferring my son out of his care center?" She held out the piece of paper, which already had close to a hundred signatures. "They're transferring them to the facility at Hartheim, and the children there don't survive. The beds are emptying."

The woman must have taken Alice's wide eyes as hesitation because she continued: "I'm a nurse, I understand how the system works. This is not normal, they are…" her voice quavered. "They're doing something to those children. Will you sign?"

"Of course." Alice took the proffered pen and signed her name. A small voice at the back of her mind told her: _be careful_, but she could not say no to this. As she wrote, she spoke: "I… I've heard about this."

"Everyone knows what they're doing," the woman said. Her eyes went dark. "I'm not the only one protesting." She gestured around at the other people outside the City Hall, many of whom looked like her family members, but there were others too.

"I've been telling my friends to take their family members home, care for them there."

"My son's care facility won't let me," the woman said. "They've already put in his transfer paperwork. I _must _fight this."

"Of course. I-"

But at that moment the voices outside the City Hall peaked in volume and Alice looked up to see a unit of SS soldiers running around the side of the building, their brows lowered and their hands on their weapons.

Alice grabbed the dark-haired woman's wrist as she turned to face them. "Don't fight them," she hissed. "They will get you out of here with words or with force, but you cannot stand against them. Go send your letter." And with that she turned around and walked away – not briskly, but at an even pace. As if she had all the time in the world.

* * *

Excerpt from '_The Killing Programs'_ by Paula Weller (2003), p. 12

_In October of 1939, the Nazis implemented Aktion T4 (though it would not become known by that name until after the war), backdating the orders to September of 1939 to disguise it as a wartime initiative. Within months it involved nearly the entire German psychiatric community. The program was framed as a 'mercy'._

* * *

After that, the Siren started visiting hospitals. She sang to wards of patients, charmed the administrators, and asked questions. At first she publicly supported Anna Wödl (she'd met her again since and found out her name). But then her uncle seized her by the arm one night and said she was destroying her reputation, that he'd confine her to the house again if she pulled another stunt like that. It was eye-wateringly frustrating to be forced to hide her true feelings lest she be _grounded._

So she supported Wödl the best she could. She offered money and advice and asked around the officials she knew about the best way to prevent the transfer of Wödl's son Alfred. As she worked, she ended up bribing a few doctors. Not any that had any say over Alfred, but ones she found out were connected with the oversight of deciding which children and adults were to be transferred to Hartheim. She handed them an envelope full of her uncle's money and asked them to _consider leaving a few more patients in the facility here. No doubt their families would like to visit them often._

She had no way of knowing if they ever considered it.

When she came back home from the last hospital, Alice knew she'd stuck her neck out. She didn't tell Jilí what she'd done. She was already cooking up excuses for if she got caught. _I just adore children so much, Herr SS. I'd love one of my own one day, and the idea of them being whisked away to some dreadful castle just breaks my heart._

Each time the door at her uncle's house knocked she flinched.

A week before Alfred's transfer date Alice and her uncle went to a party. A social mixer for the social elite of Vienna, the kind of party where you had to be introduced before you could speak to someone and where the champagne was free. Alice wore a glittering silver dress and her hair pinned in curls, and her uncle walked her into the large bustling hall with her arm in his.

Alice had never quite gotten used to these kinds of parties. She'd known that they existed back in New York, but they were for… an entirely different class of people than she belonged to. She'd been running the backstreets of Brooklyn with grubby hands and elastic around the end of her braid. But here, she'd been transplanted directly into the world of people knowing your name before you met them, of champagne and servants and never being asked to pay. She might not be comfortable here, but she knew how it went – she would make conversation about music and gossip about other people, she would deftly turn away the young men trying to clumsily seduce her (whether they were genuinely interested or trying to make a buck, she didn't care), and she would listen quietly as her uncle had conversations with men whose power terrified her.

Alice didn't sing this time since there was already a band, so she set her sights on _mingling._ Her uncle watched her closely. So Alice spoke to him instead, asking his opinion on whether she should produce a single song or an album next, and handing him glasses of champagne.

When he finally went to the bathroom Alice strode across the glittering hall toward the representative from the Ministry of the Interior, who was visiting Vienna for the weekend. Herr Schneider. She stood nearby, sipping her champagne, until someone introduced her into the small circle of conversation.

"Nice to meet you," Alice said as she lightly shook the man's hand. He was in his fifties, wearing a fine dark suit with a timepiece hanging from the breast pocket. A thin blonde mustache sat on his upper lip. After a brief appraisal her eyes slid away, as if there were others more interesting in the group.

The general who'd introduced her started waxing poetic about her singing.

"Oh, please," Alice said with a smile. "Though it is difficult to perform in Vienna now, what with all the disruptions."

"Disruptions?" asked a young officer, new in town. His eyes slid over Alice's dress and she made a mental note to avoid him.

She flapped a hand dismissively. "Parades and celebrations are perfectly fine, but when it comes to protests? Petitioning? You can hardly get around town."

_Bring it up_, she prayed as she laughed into her champagne at her own 'witty observation'. _Bring it up._

The general's wife did. "Oh, like that woman protesting all over the place about the medical facility transfers?"

The group as a whole took up the new topic of conversation, and Alice let them discuss it for a few moments as she stood in silence, smiling vaguely. The usual opinions got tossed around – _awfully disruptive, shame about the son after all, not much hope for him no matter where he is._

When Herr Schneider piped up he said: "She had better let the facilities do their work, instead of disrupting ordinary peoples' days. There's a war on, after all."

Alice smiled and replied politely: "Surely, though, it's a little cruel to a sensitive mother? My friend has a disabled son herself, one can hardly blame her for a mother's love. It can't hurt to let her keep her son close."

Her tone was bland, conversational. Alice wanted to _scream _at them for killing children, because she hadn't acknowledged it out loud yet but she _knew_, but she also knew screaming wouldn't work and her uncle would do something drastic. As if her thought had conjured him, her uncle appeared back in the entrance of the room and looked around. She felt his eyes fall on her, and saw his teeth grind.

The representative sighed. "You're not alone, _Frä__u__lein__. _So many young women and mothers are writing to us, it seems you're onto a struck nerve. We're in talks though, you needn't fret." And then he offered her a genial smile and turned back to the rest of the group, who had already changed the topic.

"Sir," she said a little louder. He looked over at her with raised eyebrows. "If you would consider-"

"Alice!" her uncle called as he strode across the room to her. "There you are, I thought I'd lost you."

"Not quite," Alice said with a thin smile. The Ministry of the Interior representative looked away.

Alice's uncle took her arm in a rigid grip and walked her across the room to one of his friends. Alice let him. She felt like a grain of sand in a riptide – she moved, she scraped across the bottom and was whisked up and around, but despite all that she had no true power to do anything to change her situation.

And as she whisked to and fro, others were pulled into the depths.

In the end, they did move Wödl's son. But not to Hartheim, to a children's clinic in Vienna. Wödl ceased her protests under immense pressure from the police and government and under the hope that in raising her voice this time, she had saved her sons life.

Alice tried to feel hope. But she just felt cold.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_The Rise and Fall of SHIELD'_ by Amanda Glass (2014)

_… SHIELD's parent agency, the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), had noble beginnings. In mid 1940, on the orders of President Franklin D Roosevelt and alongside similar agencies forming overseas (see: British Special Operations Executive), Colonel Chester Phillips was tasked with heading up a new top-secret war agency to combat the Nazis' startling strides in technology, notably their HYDRA science division. At the time, the SSR's foundation would have been a beacon of hope, however secret, amidst the desperation and devastation of war. Little did they know then that the division they'd been founded to fight would become their downfall._

* * *

One night at the end of August, the British dropped bombs on Berlin. Alice felt… hopeful, maybe. But then she thought of the people she'd met in Berlin – not the officials and socialites who she went to parties with, but the people she met when evening fell and she crept out of her uncle's lodgings. She didn't know if those people – singers and street urchins and barflies – had access to bomb shelters.

A government official came to Alice's uncle's house and instructed them all on what to do in the event of an air raid. As he spoke, Alice pictured a dark sky and the shudder of bombs hitting the streets. For the first time, it felt like the war had come to Vienna. Even if just in her mind.

Then Alice went to the war.

Her uncle had been talking about a tour of occupied France for a while, but Alice hadn't thought he was _serious _until she came home from a visit downtown with Jilí to find a folder of papers on her dresser table. _French Tour Schedule._ Her heart shot into her mouth and she had to plant both palms on the dresser to keep herself upright.

She knew there was no saying no to this.

So she went.

The tour lasted two weeks: Paris, Marseille, Vichy (the new seat of the French government), Bordeaux, Lyon, Nice. She'd been to Paris before, but the others she'd only ever imagined. Her friend Edith at school had told her about these cities, about the patisseries and cafes she had visited as a child, and how the French countryside felt to her like the simplest and most perfect place on Earth.

Alice hoped Edith would never see her country like this.

Over two weeks, Alice saw what the war had done to France. Nazi flags hung in the cities and soldiers marched the streets, and from the train window on her way from city to city Alice saw metal blockades and tank tracks churning through fields. The German troops only occupied the north half of France, leaving the southern "free" zone to organize the day-to-day running of the country under collaboration with the Germans. No matter what half they were in, though, the people looked the same: they wore stunned faces. Faces that said _this can't be real._

Alice knew how they felt.

She was touring France, but really she was just singing for more Nazis – German troops, officials, generals, French politicians who were sympathetic to the Nazis. Her voice rang true but the words felt like nothing to her, as if she were just a record that one touched a needle to and it would peal out the same old song like clockwork.

On the way out of her concert in Paris, a man wearing overalls and a threadbare cap pushed through the crowd and spat on Alice's pure white dress. It all happened so quickly she had only a second to look up and stare at the man's furious face before the soldiers outside the concert hall ran over and slammed the butt of a rifle into the man's face. The crowd outside the hall exploded into uproar – shouts, excited chatter, fussing over Alice and her dress. Hands touched Alice's arms and guided her back inside just as the man with the broken face was hauled away by the soldiers.

Alice did not say a word as she was tended to. She'd been taken back into the hall and aides were cleaning her dress while apologizing profusely the whole time. She could hear her uncle yelling at someone.

Alice wondered if she'd feel anything if the soldiers struck her like they'd struck that man.

* * *

**John Lempriere: _"Some suppose that the Sirens were a number of lascivious women in Sicily, who prostituted themselves to strangers, and made them forget their pursuits while drowned in unlawful pleasures."_**

* * *

That night Alice changed out of her evening gown into a pair of brown trousers and a loose shirt, and tucked her hair into a cap (she'd stolen the clothing from the hotel's laundrette after dinner). She looked at herself in the mirror and slid on the unseasonably thick coat she'd brought with her. She tilted her head so the cap shadowed her face.

A sigh of relief escaped her lips. This wasn't _Die Sirene. _This could be anybody. Any _man._

She crept out of her room, slipped down the hotel corridor and down the staff stairs. Each step she took away from her ordinary life felt like a weight off her shoulders.

It was only until she began walking the dark, silent streets of Paris that she remembered the Nazis had imposed a curfew – nine in the evening until five in the morning. Not a light shone in the city. She could hear the distant coordinated steps of patrols.

But the air felt cool and fresh on her skin and her disguise made her feel as if she could fly, so she stayed out.

At night you couldn't tell what the city had become. All flags were the same color in the dark. She turned down narrow alleys that smelled of trash and paced down wide avenues with her ears alert for the sound of footsteps. She could hear the city, if she listened hard enough: there might be a curfew but no one was asleep. She heard snatches of conversation and song and even laughter in the buildings she passed, the crackle of the radio and clattering dishes. Paris was still alive even in the dark.

Two hours of walking later, Alice walked past a building where the sounds of life in the dark were somehow brighter than anything she'd heard before. She paused, cocked her head, and spotted a halo of light peeking out from under a door across the street. She squinted and read the sign, silently thanking Edith for teaching her French back in junior high: she'd found a music shop. Though the large _closed _sign under the name of the shop wasn't encouraging.

She listened at the door for a minute or so – certainly didn't sound like music inside. Just chatter and clinking glasses.

Then she heard tramping footsteps at the other end of the street.

Alice had pulled the music shop door open and whirled inside before considering that she might be better off trying her luck with the patrol than with whatever waited inside.

The noises within fell dead at her sudden appearance. Alice looked up, blinking, to see about thirty people staring at her. They sat at wobbly tables that had been pushed into the disused music shop, and on the other side of the room the cashier's counter had been turned into a makeshift bar. Brown, dusty bottles of alcohol gleamed dully.

She'd just interrupted a quiet night of illicit drinking, judging by the suddenly-afraid faces now looking back at her. Wine glasses and beer flagons were gently set on tables and shoulders tensed across the room.

Alice swallowed and tilted her head to shadow her face. She cleared her throat. "_Bonsoir," _she said in a low pitched voice, mimicking the Parisian accent she'd heard throughout the day. Just that simple word seemed to relieve the sudden tension in the makeshift bar. She jerked her head over her shoulder and continued in French: "The patrol is coming."

The man standing behind the bar checked his watch. "Ah. Eleven o'clock patrol. Audric?"

A dark-haired man near the door leaned over and hit the light switch, casting the bar into the same darkness that lurked outside. Everyone listened in the dark as the tramping footsteps outside grew louder, louder, seemed to be at the very door… and then faded away.

Alice let out a breath.

Audric switched the lights on, and with a shared laugh and a clink of glasses the French men and women inside got back to drinking.

Alice cautiously walked through the room toward the counter-turned bar. The bartender, a round-faced man with a quirked mustache, looked up and tipped his cap at her.

"Thank you, stranger," he said. "When the patrols come knocking we usually offer them a beer and they leave us alone, but it's better to be safe than sorry. What'll you have, sir?"

Alice blinked and looked around again. She could see how this used to be a music shop – empty shelves on the walls, a bare spot on the wooden floor where a phonograph stand must have been. But now it was empty save for a collection of mis-matched chairs and tables, bottles of alcohol, and a collection of Parisians who did not seem to pay all that much mind to the newly-imposed curfew. Their bright faces were enticing after the company Alice had been keeping these last two weeks. They chattered and gossiped and told dirty jokes, a low hum of words Alice felt lucky to understand.

She turned back to the bartender. "Can you make a Paris Side Car?"

He made a face. "Goodness, normally folks just want whatever will get them drunkest fastest. Let's see…" he leaned back, surveying his many bottles, and then shrugged. "I can make something close enough. With the way rationing is going I won't be able to soon, but for now you shall have your Side Car."

Alice leaned against the counter and watched people as the bartender made her drink, letting the warmth of collective body heat wash over her and the smells of stale alcohol and dust fill her nose.

"What's your name, stranger?" asked the bartender as he mixed her drink.

She angled her head away. "Al."

"Well, Al, welcome to our small establishment." He slid the cocktail over – it was in a gin tumbler, but she didn't mind – and Alice took it with a smile.

She found herself a spare chair and took a sip of her drink as she closed her eyes. She remembered the first time she'd tried a Paris Side Car, how Bucky had complained about it being a _fancy drink _and how Steve had fearlessly taken his, raised it and said '_to Alice'._

When she opened her eyes again she was alone in Paris, hiding from the world outside in a bar that had once been a home for music.

Alice spent the next few hours in the strange room with the others who didn't want to stay home. She drank and spoke as little French as possible in order to keep her cover, and began to feel the city open up to her. She heard her fellow patrons curse the Germans and complain about how hard it was to get a decent fucking wine these days. They drank a round to General Charles De Gaulle, who had fled to London but who hadn't forgotten his country, and complained about the regulations, censorship, and propaganda that the Germans had brought.

"Not much changed at first," said one woman when she noticed Alice looking over, "but things are getting worse."

They drank to their family members trapped as prisoners of war in Germany, and hoped that the Germans would just _win already _so they could get their country back like had been promised.

When Alice's mind was pleasantly blurry, she nodded farewell to the bartender and then walked home in the dark. As she walked, she looked up to see a man and a woman silhouetted in a window, entwined in a kiss.

_Why am I here? _She thought. Her stolen shoes pinched her toes. _Why am I seeing this place? What can I do?_

* * *

Excerpt from '_T__he_ "_Refus Absurde": Life in Nazi Occupied France, 1940' _by Pierre Montague (1997), p 2

_… after such a complete and total defeat, there was little the French population could do but submit to Nazi domination, and wait for the war to end – inevitably a German victory. Resistance was futile. Those who'd fled to the countryside slowly trickled back into the main cities. The overall feeling after the lightning-fast invasion was shock, and alienation. A great portion of military-aged men were trapped in POW camps, and those who were left behind were left to the rigid rule of the puppet government in Vichy (in the unoccupied "Free Zone") and the Gestapo._

_But even in that shocked, defeated summer, a budding resistance began to bloom. Writer Jean Cassou called this resistance in the face of inevitable Reich victory the 'refus absurde' – "absurd refusal"._

* * *

_September 17th, 1940  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_Just got back from France and had a letter from you waiting for me – a perfect welcome home present. Needed the laugh from that story about Bucky and his sisters, so thank you._

_France was fine, you don't need to worry about me – they never took me anywhere dangerous. Nothing bad happened. It was sobering to see the changes that have happened there: there's a curfew now, and of course Nazi flags everywhere, and there's a labor shortage which makes things even more difficult for them. I hope my uncle doesn't take us on another tour there. It felt wrong._

_I just heard they're introducing conscription in the States. I know the US isn't in the war, but I was wondering: they can't take you, right? Surely you could get a letter from your doctor to exempt you._

_I know you'd rather join, but this feels like the beginning of something serious. What are the rules of conscription? The news here is so full of propaganda I couldn't find anything useful out. I think Bucky must be eligible, but surely they don't automatically take every young man of a certain age? He hasn't been drafted, has he?_

_This isn't the time to be a soldier, Steve. Germany is winning._

_Please write soon._

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

_September 29th, 1940  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_It was good to hear from you too. I'm glad nothing happened in France, but I still feel like you maybe haven't told me everything. That's okay, I know there's some things you can't put in the mail, but I want you to know that I hope you stay safe. You're in a war, Alice. Be careful._

_As for conscription, not much has actually happened in that regard yet. They've got a cap of 900,000 per intake across the country._

_I know you're worried, but if we go to war I'll be out there with everyone else. I've got no right to do any less._

_Sorry._

_Bucky's nervous, but more for me. He hasn't said anything but I think he might enlist under his own steam if we go to war._

_If Germany's winning, now is exactly the time to be a soldier._

_Yours,  
Steve._

* * *

One morning, Alice knocked on the door to Jilí's house and let out a sigh of relief when the door swung inward to reveal her friend. Walking through the cooling streets of Vienna had felt like striding through treacle. Alice felt small and tired, and arriving at the familiar apartment was a source of comfort.

Jilí frowned at Alice as she walked past her into the apartment. "Aren't you meant to be having visitors over at your home today?"

Alice shrugged and went to the kitchen to start the kettle. "They're my uncle's visitors."

"He'll be angry," Jilí said softly.

"What's he going to do, force me to stay at home again?"

"He might."

"Maybe I could run away. Live here."

"You don't want to do that, Alice. Don't throw yourself away."

Alice just bunched her shoulders and made herself busy in the kitchen. When she turned around a couple of minutes later Jilí had sat at the table to assemble food packages in brown hessian bags. She didn't look up when Alice set down a cup of tea for her, but then Alice moved past her to sit on the other side of the table and she looked up with a wrinkled nose.

Her dark eyes flicked over Alice. "Isn't that the same dress you wore yesterday?"

Alice sipped her tea. "No one notices."

"I do."

Alice looked up into her friend's dark, serious eyes, and then glanced down to pull a hessian bag towards herself and began packing it. Cans and packets of dehydrated goods, unpleasant to eat but utterly necessary for a family hiding and surviving in a garden shed or a basement.

For twenty long minutes, Alice and Jilí worked in silence. Alice let herself get lost in the repetitive work.

But then they ran out of food. The two of them sat across from each other in the quiet apartment and listened to car engines rumble outside.

Alice thought wars were meant to be noisy – shouting, explosions, gunfire. But so far the war had brought nothing but silence to her life.

Jilí broke the silence. "Do you think that we might…" her eyes dropped. "Do you think there's some way of pushing back against all this?"

Alice looked up at her friend. "Against the war? What, a resistance?"

Jilí met her gaze. "Exactly." Her eyes were resolute. It was clear this wasn't a spur of the moment thought.

Alice sighed. "There's no resistance in Austria, Jilí. There's not even one in France, not really. They don't see the point. And in Austria… this isn't an invasion or an unwelcome tyrant. People _wanted _this."

"I didn't," her friend replied with a bite of anger in her voice.

"Neither did I," Alice said in a softer tone. She recalled how they'd found Franz: frozen and bloody. "But I don't think what _we _want counts at all."

"It counts for you," Jilí said in a firmer voice. "You are not like me, Alice."

"Why not? Why should we be different?"

"Now you're just being naïve," Jilí said dismissively as she leaned back in her chair. "I'm not telling you to speak out, I know that's too dangerous. But you are not _helpless_, Alice."

"I'm not naïve," Alice replied. She was no longer looking at Jilí, but out the window. "This world just makes no sense."

* * *

Alice stopped writing songs. No one noticed. Songwriters at the production company and the propaganda department kept up a steady stream of songs for her to perform, and her uncle kept bringing her to concert halls and parties.

But this was the first time in ten years that Alice had not had an unwritten tune nagging at the corner of her mind, the first time she didn't feel song waiting to trip from her tongue. It was as if her mind had fallen silent.

* * *

_October 16th, 1940  
Brooklyn  
Dear Alice,_

_Went to go see a film with Bucky today, and I definitely don't think this one will have been allowed in Austria. It's the latest Chaplin film, called 'The Great Dictator.'_

_I was in two minds watching it. Chaplin plays a Jewish man and Hitler himself, and it's… a comedy, I suppose, but it's serious too. It shows Kristallnacht in Berlin. I suppose it's good to turn Hitler into satire – make fun of his flaws, that sort of thing. But the other half of me thinks that we ought to take this seriously. Like you said, he's a serious man. I don't know how you or anyone else living under all that would feel about it all being turned into a joke._

_Also I read somewhere that apparently the Nazis are convinced that Chaplin's a Jew. As far as I know he's not, which makes it all kind of bizarre. Maybe they're just trying to find a reason to hate him._

_I haven't heard from you lately. I know the mail's slow, and I know you must be busy, but I'm worried about you. You've been writing long enough letters but you've been saying less and less. Let me know how you are. How you really are. You're not alone, Alice._

_Yours,  
Steve._

* * *

October 1940  
New York City

Peggy Carter strode into an unmarked office in a nondescript building just outside of Manhattan, her army regimentals neatly flatironed and her red lips pressed together. First day on the job – had to make a good impression. They didn't have to like her, but she'd make damn sure they respected her.

The man at the desk inside looked up with a vaguely irritated expression on his face. Peggy knew who he was already: Chester Phillips. His dark brown uniform bore a Colonel's stripes and Peggy instantly saw from his rigid face and the flat line to his mouth that this was a man who would take no nonsense.

"The hell are you?" he said by way of greeting.

Peggy straightened and saluted. "Agent Carter, sir."

"Ah." Colonel Phillips set down the file he'd been reading. "MI5, right?"

"Yes, sir."

He eyed her. "I didn't agree to your transfer. MI5 and the army went over my head."

Peggy returned his gaze flatly.

After a few more seconds of silence he let out a harrumph like an unhappy bull and picked up the file again. He continued to read as he spoke to her. "Your official title is 'adviser', but I think you probably know enough about how things work around here to know that official titles don't mean all that much."

"Yes, sir." She'd been quick to learn, first as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park and then with MI5. The war had been a whirlwind since her brother died on the front.

Colonel Phillips shot her another quick, irritated glance. "At the moment we're gathering intel on HYDRA. They're-"

"The Nazi science division," Peggy finished. "I've been briefed, sir."

His jaw tightened. "We're also working on bringing Stark into the fold, but he's not taking the war all that seriously right now."

Peggy tried not to grimace. "Do you want me to-"

He waved a hand. "Don't' worry about him for now, we'll bring him around. No, your first assignment will be in the field."

Peggy's eyebrows rose. "Sir?"

"We're planning a rescue mission."

* * *

_October 30th, 1940  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_I'm sorry I haven't written lately. I don't even have a good excuse to give you, I'm afraid. Time seems to drag on, dripping slow… and then the next thing I know three months have passed. I think it's because I'm trying to pretend that the reality around me isn't happening – the war, the Nazis, the violence creeping closer and closer to home._

_When I sing I feel like I'm in a dream. Sometimes, I think I see things out of the corner of my eye: flashes of light, and sometimes a figure. Sometimes I think I'm going mad._

_My uncle is flourishing. I think he likes how he fits into the political structure here. He's a big, important man and he will only get more important as the war marches on. He's gotten us an invitation to Castle Kauffman in Bavaria, the headquarters of one of the top Nazi generals (head of their new science division), for a gathering of SS generals and officials. My uncle is ecstatic._

_He says I ought to be happy too, but… I don't know if I know how to be happy anymore._

_I'm sorry, this is depressing. I suppose I haven't really thought all that much about my situation until just now when I sat down to write to you. This is nice, at least._

_Thank you for telling me about the film. I hadn't heard about it._

_I have to go now._

_Yours,  
Alice._

* * *

That night, after delivering the letter for Steve to Jilí, Alice climbed the stairs to her uncle's house. Jilí was frustrated with her for some reason, her words had been curt. Alice had been too tired to fight with her.

She didn't stop climbing the stairs when she reached the level of her bedroom. She kept climbing, one foot in front of the other, until she arrived at the roof. She kept walking towards the very edge, then set her hands on the low stone barrier and looked down.

She was four floors up, breathing in the night air. The October breeze snatched at her hair and made her eyes water.

She wouldn't get a reply from Steve for weeks. When he did reply he would be worried, and she would feel bad for worrying him, and he would tell her that she should come back to Brooklyn, and… every time Alice considered it guilt twisted in her gut like poison.

She had a whole month of performances ahead of her, and after that probably another month, then another, until…

Her hands clenched on the stone barrier. There was no _until. _This looked like forever.

Her life had become cold, lonely, terrifying. It had happened so gradually that she hadn't noticed until she found herself short of breath from anxiety each morning and realized that she could go days, weeks, without smiling. She had Jilí, but their friendship was a secret that more and more became an alliance, a bond to keep death at bay. Alice knew that she was letting Jilí down, but she didn't know how to stop it. More often than not she only had her uncle: cold, disappointed, thrilled by everything Alice despised. She was pretty sure she hated him, but she didn't have the energy to hate any more.

Steve was a distant, warm memory. His letters no longer felt like a promise for the future. They felt like a reminder of her past, a memory of what might have been – _what if, what if._

Alice's gaze traveled down. Down past the terraces of the building across the street and its darkened windows, down past the iron street lamps, to the cobbles of the footpath below. The street was nearly empty; just a few pedestrians a few hundred feet away. They couldn't see her.

Alice stretched up on her toes.

_It would be easy._

A short, fluttering flight, like a bird released from a cage. Then nothing.

She stared at the cobblestones below for so long that her eyes burned and her fingers grew rigid and uncomfortable from gripping the stone barrier. The wind caressed her wet cheeks, her neck.

She pressed her lips together.

_What's the point_?

After another moment to stare down at the empty air below, Alice pushed her rigid fingers against the barrier and stepped away. Wiping her cheeks, she turned and went back downstairs to bed.

* * *

**_~ It doesn't need to hurt. ~_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I drew heavily on the Encyclopedia Brittanica website for the information about the Aktion T4 program, and Wikipedia for the 'refus absurde'. I've got a history boner for the French Resistance, what can I say. And Anna Wödl was a real woman. Thanks for your patience as the plot progresses, let me know if you're still enjoying!


	22. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting early because why not, and next week's update may be a little late :)

November 1940

"_And the glory of the Fatherland…_"

As she sang and played the piano, Alice let her gaze drift around the room. She never obviously moved her eyes, but she'd developed a talent for observing unnoticed while being observed – and every eye in the room was on her.

Alice had never performed in a castle before (unless you counted the bar in Brooklyn called _King's Castle_). She sat at a grand piano in a grand room. Arching windows overlooked the mountains and hills that lay beneath the looming castle, two chandeliers ablaze with real candles hung from the tall ceiling, and the walls boasted ornate paintings and landscapes. Where once this castle might have hosted German nobles, princes and princesses, nearly everyone in the hall listening to Alice's song wore a uniform. Her eyes skimmed across their grey-green uniforms with the Nazi crosses hanging around their necks like medals. They'd taken off their hats at least, so she didn't have to see the _Reichsadler_ eagle.

They listened to her song with beneficent smiles and for some, with misty eyes.

Alice often had a recurring daydream. In the dream she stopped mid-song, breaking her audience out of their reverie, and then began to scream at them: _how can you cry at my song, but not at the things you have done? How can you gather here and drink and enjoy comforts while people suffocate beneath your boots? _A siren turned harpy. In the dream her voice shattered the chandeliers which rained razor sharp shards down on the uniformed men, then she picked up her microphone stand and hurled it across the room like a javelin to pierce a distant, smoky Führer in the heart.

Alice's voice crested and she let the dream fade slowly. No one noticed her fingers shaking slightly on the piano keys.

Her uncle was an ever present shadow out of the corner of her eye.

She supposed there hadn't been this many gathered SS generals since their last meeting in Berlin. Alice had figured out what all this celebration was in aid of a few hours after arriving: Herr Johann Schmidt, the leader of the Nazi special weapons division HYDRA, wanted to buy more support and money for his division by impressing his guests with his castle and getting them fat and drunk. There'd been rumors that the Führer might show, though those had so far been unfounded. Still, the room contained many of the top Nazi generals and elites. Alice and the others were just decoration.

Alice had met their host earlier that morning when they arrived. Her uncle had taken her arm the moment she stepped out of their black towncar, and she had barely a chance to gaze up at the stretching spires of the castle before he steered her through the open front doors. The foyer had been bustling with other guests, and at the far end of the room stood Herr Schmidt. He was younger than she'd expected, with a rigid posture and flat dark eyes that suggested a sharp intelligence beneath them. Alice instantly mistrusted him.

An aide had whispered into Herr Schmidt's ear as she and her uncle approached.

He looked up with a tight smile. "Herr Huber, Fräulein Moser. What a privilege to have you here with us." He looked bored.

Her uncle immediately shook Schmidt's hand and started simpering and flattering.

A nearby general looked over at the names, and on seeing Alice his eyes lit up. "Are you to sing for us, Siren?"

Schmidt seemed irritated at the interruption, and for the first time actually looked at Alice. She bowed her head. "If our kind host wishes it, of course."

Since that night on the rooftop, something had died in Alice. The only reason she got out of bed each morning was a vague kind of curiosity about what new horrors the day would bring, and the knowledge that someone would tell her what to do: her uncle giving her performance schedules and party invitations, or Jilí telling her where to go and who to help, with an increasing look of concern and frustration on her face.

The general who'd first spoken clapped Schmidt on the shoulder. "Do ask her to sing, Schmidt, she's divine."

Alice still did not look up, but she saw Schmidt's thin smile.

"Of course, Fraulein, you must give us a song or two this evening."

An order. She lifted her gaze to the man's flat, unimpressed face. "Certainly."

Since then Alice had been doing her best to stay out of everyone's way until it could no longer be avoided. Since she'd met him that morning she'd only caught glimpses of their host – he'd been off on the other side of the castle, which a servant told her housed the science labs. He had a shadow: a short weaselly man with thick round glasses, who stooped and genuflected around Schmidt like he was worshiping a god who terrified him. Schmidt had another shadow, a man with a graying beard and thin wireframe glasses. Alice had only caught a glimpse of this man's face, and saw that he did not worship Schmidt. He just looked afraid.

The castle also thronged with soldiers and guards – the head of the special weapons division seemed to like keeping up an armed presence.

Herr Schmidt was nowhere to be seen as Alice finally reached the end of her song. The music quavered, held… and then faded away. She closed her eyes and curled her fingers away from the piano as the room erupted into applause.

She stepped away from the piano and into the crowd, feeling congratulations and praise wash over her like oil off water. Numb, she just _moved._ Anything to get out of their gazes. But then her uncle took her elbow in his bony, always-too-cold hands and she fell still. He murmured in her ear over the noise of the now well-pleased crowd. Saying that she'd done well and made him proud, no doubt. She didn't care to listen but that was usually what he said to her. She stood, her face angled down and her body utterly still as he held her fast and gave her commands. _Mingle. Be pleasant. Mention the production company. _She didn't notice two pairs of eyes watching her from different positions across the room.

Finally her uncle let her go, and she moved away. A dark-haired maid with a tray of glasses appeared at her elbow. "Would you care for a drink, Fräu Siren?"

Alice only heard the words because the maid's accent was strange to her ears, but then she looked up and shook her head mutely. The maid backed away.

Alice moved to the edge of the room and pressed her back against the ornate wooden wall. The body heat and collective conversation in the room washed over her, somehow overwhelming. She swallowed thickly and forced herself to appear serene, untouched.

She felt the presence beside her before she saw it. "I see you too have someone pulling your strings."

Alice stiffened and glanced sharply at the stranger. Her wariness only increased when she recognized him as Herr Schmidt's reluctant shadow. He wore a dinner coat over what looked like a doctor's white uniform, though none of it fit him very well at all. He was slightly shorter than her. His shoulders were hunched, as if to avert attention, his white-grey hair was receding from his forehead and he had a short beard. He looked from her uncle across the room to her with a knowing look.

Alice had been offended by his words, but then the man shot her a small, sad smile and her shoulders loosened slightly. He had kind eyes. She felt presences close by and looked up to see two SS soldiers standing equidistant from the stranger, not looking at him except out of the corners of their eyes. They held drinks, but didn't even sip from them. They were _guards._

Alice averted her eyes from the guards. She looked back to the stranger and said, cautiously: "It's not an enviable task, being a puppet. Who is your puppetmaster?"

The man sipped his drink, looked meaningfully at the guards watching him and then gestured a hand as if to encompass the entire castle. Alice understood now why he had been following Schmidt through the castle corridors with the look of a prisoner on his face. He _was _a prisoner. But if this dinner party charade was anything to go by, Schmidt wanted to make him seem a guest.

The man leaned against the wall beside Alice. "I am afraid that I cannot speak my master's words as beautifully you do yours." He toasted her with his glass. "You have a gift."

Alice pressed her back harder into the wall. "What use is a gift when you cannot use it for yourself?"

His eyes went sad behind his glasses. "In the service of others, perhaps?" He spoke softly. He had a south German accent.

Alice shook her head, thinking of Jilí and the Hofmanns and the Steiners and all the other people counting on her in Vienna. The people who she couldn't help, not really. Certainly not with her voice. "I've not been able to do that in a long time."

"It is difficult to be kind in a world of big men with cruel hearts."

The hopelessness in his voice sparked something in her and she spoke before really thinking about it: "But not impossible."

She felt a kindling of interest from that forgotten part of herself, the part that brought wordless tunes floating through her mind and sent her scribbling notes on whatever was closest to hand at three in the morning. Her words felt like _hope_, when she hadn't thought she was capable of that anymore. And she didn't truly know what had changed.

The man perked up with raised eyebrows. "Oh? I see you have an idea, Fraülein."

"Not an idea," she said with a frown. "Not yet. A hope." She had no idea where it had come from. Perhaps just from the comfort of finding someone like her, who stood in this room of uniforms and laughter and felt _trapped. _She didn't know what he'd done or why he was a prisoner, but she felt as if just maybe, their hearts might be similar.

"Do you mind if I borrow some of your hope?"

Alice turned to eye the man. For the first time, as he sipped his drink, she saw the purpling chafes on his wrists that she knew meant _handcuffs._ She saw a hopelessness in his eyes that she had seen in some of her friends, sometimes. She'd seen it before in dogs on the street. She'd seen it on the faces of dying men. She'd seen it in the mirror.

Alice reached out impulsively and took the man's hand. He had thin, clever scientist's fingers. "You may take all you need. What's your name?"

He seemed abashed at having her take his hand, and his gaze dropped. "My name is of no consequence anymore."

"It is to me."

He looked up with a smile. "Abraham. Doctor Abraham Erskine."

_Abraham. _Alice wondered if he was Jewish. If that was the source of the sadness behind his eyes. She felt the smooth metal of a wedding ring as she held his hand.

She opened her mouth to reply, but then Erskine's eyes flicked over her shoulder.

"Here comes a puppetmaster," he warned.

Alice dropped his hand and looked over just as her uncle appeared, his brow heavy as he looked between her and the strange prisoner. "Alice, what are you doing over here?" he chided. "Come, I have just made the acquaintance of the Minister for Finance." He pulled her away by the hand and as ever, Alice went. She looked over her shoulder toward Erskine as she was pulled into the crowd.

She made a _snip _motion with her fingers over her head, and it made him smile.

When she turned around with a serene smile on her face, her heart felt lighter than it had since she entered this castle. Nothing had changed, really, she was still in just a hopeless position as before. But that brief, strange conversation had reminded her that it was not impossible to be kind, even in the midst of the insanity her world had become. It reminded her that it was possible to hope. Possible to fight back, even in the smallest ways. It reminded her, strangely, of Steve.

She didn't notice the maid from before standing in the corner of the room, watching her interact with Erskine with a quirk in her brow.

* * *

In the early hours of the morning, Alice and her uncle were hastened out of their beds by a flustered soldier in a dark uniform Alice didn't recognize.

"You must leave," he told them, clutching his weapon too tightly for Alice to be comfortable. "The castle isn't safe."

Her uncle was very unhappy, and made his unhappiness known, but the whole castle was in uproar for some reason and the other guests were being shuffled out to their cars as well. Alice's uncle's complaints were by no means the loudest.

As Alice followed silently, her trunk in hand, she heard a soldier exclaim to his fellow: "- _knew they were up to no good in those labs, it was only a matter of time until something went wrong-_"

"-_looks like a monster-_" said the other in a hushed voice.

Alice slowed her steps to listen further, but her uncle planted his hand on her back and propelled her out of the front doors and into the shivery November air.

In the car on the long road back to Vienna, Alice's uncle switched between complaining to no one in particular about their rude ushering away, and reiterating that Herr Schmidt had told him personally that they were _very welcome guests._ Alice did not listen to him. She twisted in her seat and watched Castle Kauffman fade into the dim dawn light behind them. When she could no longer see it she sat back down and looked down at her entwined hands. She hoped Erskine was alright.

* * *

Preliminary mission report by Agent Carter: _Operation Marmot _(November 15th, 1940)

_I am pleased to report complete mission success. The asset was liberated amidst the chaos following the uproar at Castle Kauffman (see report r.e. 'Red Skull), and smuggled through Bavaria and back to the extraction point with minimal opposition (neutralised)._

_Attached are hand-drawn maps of Castle Kauffman, a report of observed HYDRA activities, an asset report, and a list of personnel and guests observed at the castle (mostly military personnel, but also some socialite figures from Germany and Austria. Recommend compiling intel on all attendees)._

_Extraction to the States is expected in the coming hours. Asset is willing and eager not only to flee captivity but also to participate in anti-Axis efforts. Mission control query r.e. remaining familial connection has been answered: none survived._

* * *

When Alice came back to Vienna and snuck out to Jilí's house, her friend opened the door with a look of deep concern which then transformed into a surprised kind of relief.

"How are you?" she murmured, letting Alice in and shutting the door behind her.

Alice nodded slowly. "I… am awake again. I think."

Jilí reached out to touch Alice's shoulder. Alice leaned into it. "I am glad to hear it."

* * *

Weeks later, Alice heard a rumor. She'd been asking about Castle Kauffman and Herr Schmidt, curious about what had prompted their abrupt removal, but had gotten back nothing more concrete than that there had been some kind of accident, that Schmidt was injured, and the Nazi elite were displeased with him.

But then she heard another rumor; not from her higher-up 'friends', but from the streets. A whisper that could have been pure fantasy: _A prisoner of a high-up SS general has escaped – has been __liberated__, by Allied spies. From right under the general's nose._

The moment Alice heard it she thought of Erskine and her heart leaped. She crossed all her fingers and toes and _hoped _it was him. Hoped he had been whisked out of his chains and out of that looming castle. For him she couldn't do much more than hope, but the hope gave her another surge of strength in her assistance of her friends in Vienna. If Erskine could get out, surely so could they? She organised more escapes in the dead of night, coordinating train tickets and border passes and empty lorries. Jilí helped, offering Alice warm looks and comforting touches in the darkness. Alice could tell she wanted to say _thank you_, but knew that Alice would never let her say it.

They did all their work through personal networks: friends and friends of friends, a game of life and death and trust.

It felt like something was coming. And in the end that was what hope was, wasn't it?

* * *

"Steve. Steve, you're drunk."

"M'not _drunk_, Bucky, listen to me-"

"I am listening, and I _know _you're worried – I am too – but worrying about this while you're drunk isn't going to help anyone." Bucky set his hand on Steve's thin shoulder, trying to steady his friend.

They sat at a table at the back of a dance hall with dim candlelight illuminating their faces and half-finished drinks at their elbows. Steve's date had ditched him an hour ago (fair enough really, he'd accidentally headbutted her chin after dancing for about ten seconds, and then a handsome fella at the bar had come over and offered to "rescue" her). Bucky could gauge pretty well by now when Steve needed to be alone and when he needed to talk, and knew that tonight was one of the latter times. So he'd apologized to his date and joined his friend at the back of the hall.

Steve ran a hand through his hair. "Buck, her voice has _completely changed_. Something's _wrong-_"

"Well she's on the other side of a war, pal. Besides, I thought you said it was getting better? She's written me a couple times and she sounds more or less normal."

Steve sat back. "I think she is getting better, but she still sounds tired." He ran a hand over his face, not noticing that his collar was sticking completely up now. His words tripped from his tongue, fueled by alcohol and months of stress and worry. In a strange way, Bucky sometimes privately reflected, it was as if Alice were the soldier off to war and Steve was the sweetheart left waiting and worrying back home. Bucky kept that thought safe in his own head.

"It's only letters, Steve," Bucky said. He slid Steve's drink out of reach across the table.

"But I can _tell_," Steve insisted. "I… it's Alice, and I _know _Alice, and she's… she's hurting, Bucky."

Bucky's brow furrowed and he leaned back in his chair as well. He hadn't seen Alice in four long years, but he hadn't forgotten her. She was still his friend. And he knew that if Steve said she was hurting then she _was. _Steve had a way of seeing past her tricks and careful words in a way that Bucky had never been able to.

He sighed and ran a hand over his face. "We'll get her back, Steve."

Steve looked up with red-lined eyes. He _was _drunk.

"Even if we have to go over there and win this war ourselves, we'll get her back home to Brooklyn." Bucky leaned over to grab Steve's shoulder again. "Until then… write to her. Tell her about your day. Tell her about how you blew another date" – Steve's miserable look turned annoyed – "and about how the Dodgers blew another game, and about how handsome and talented I've become since she left." Steve's annoyed look turned into an eye roll. Bucky laughed and reeled Steve into a one-armed hug. "Your girl will be home before you know it." Steve stiffened. "Don't tell her I called her that."

But Bucky had misjudged the reason for Steve's sudden tension. Steve pulled out of Bucky's arm, got to his feet, and shouted "_Hey_!" across the room.

Bucky looked up to see the handsome fella who'd stolen Steve's date leaned over the date in question, his hand on her arm and his body language domineering. The young woman looked up at him with a plastered-on nervous smile. Her hand wrapped around the man's wrist as if trying to pull him off her.

Steve shot out of his chair and stormed over.

"Oh boy." Bucky grabbed Steve's forgotten drink, finished it, and then rushed to help Steve's date and wrangle his friend.

* * *

Excerpt from '_The turn of the war: US involvement in World War II' _by Kathy Grant (1992), p. 72

_For the first two years of the war, the United States did not get involved. The majority of the population believed that getting involved in the international crisis in World War I had been a mistake and the cause of a colossal loss of life. In 1935 Congress passed a law preventing the shipment of arms to any party in a war, though this was revised in 1939 to allow Congress to send arms to Great Britain and France, much to the displeasure of Adolf Hitler. In the election of 1940, both candidates promised soldiers that they would not become embroiled in the war, but in reality both planned for the eventuality._

_As the war in Europe progressed and became ever bloodier, the prospect of becoming involved was a topic of heated debate in the United States, with some convinced that America must step in to help its allies and others arguing that it would only lead to more American young men dying fruitlessly, or worse, defeat to the seemingly unstoppable forces of Germany._

_Until the events of Pearl Harbor kicked off an inevitable decision the people of the United States watched from across the ocean as Europe tore itself apart, and waited._

* * *

At the end of the year, Alice convinced her uncle to let her drive up to their summer house in the mountains for the five days between Christmas and New Years. He had performances planned for her on either side of that, but he agreed that she had earned a small holiday for herself. Alice did want the time alone, but it was also a test – could her uncle be convinced to let her have a small freedom? And more importantly: would anyone notice if she disappeared for a few days?

She drove through two road blocks on the way. They checked her papers and asked for her autograph, but didn't bother checking her car.

The mountains and their spiky black pines were laden in a fresh dump of snow, making her path up the roads treacherous. Alice drove carefully and steadily until she made it to her uncle's peaked wooden cabin (though it was really too large to be called a cabin). She parked the car and peered through the front window at the quiet house. She let out a breath.

"Are we there yet?" came a small voice from the back seat.

Alice glanced over her shoulder. As soon as her uncle had lent her his Steyr motorcar she'd made some modifications: she'd hollowed out the space under the seats and poked some holes through the back of the interior into the trunk. Nothing she couldn't fix later. Now, four pale faces peered back at her from those hidden spaces.

Alice smiled. "We're here. The ride wasn't too bumpy, was it? I only learned how to drive in Vienna."

The man hiding in her trunk shook his head. "It was fine. _Thank you_, Alice." He had his arm wrapped around his wife, who despite what he'd said looked a little rattled.

"Don't thank me, I'm only getting you part of the way." She cranked down the handbrake and opened the driver's door, shivering at the snowy chill in the mountain air, then circled to open the back seat door. The two children under the back seat wriggled free and then jumped out into the crunchy snow, shaking out their limbs. Alice walked to the trunk to free their parents, then stepped back with her hands on her hips to survey the family before her.

The Hofmanns hadn't had enough money to move out of Austria before the war. They still didn't have a coin to their name (nor were they allowed to, thanks to the post-Kristallnacht laws), but it had become increasingly obvious that they needed to make some form of escape or be sent to who knew where in the East. For a month or so now they'd been gathering supplies and planning their escape with Alice and Jilí's help. Mr and Mrs Hofmann had spent a lot of sleepless nights on the concrete floor of their cousin's garden shed preparing. Their youngest son Rupert had been ill that year, but Alice was sure he'd be up to the journey now. She smiled thinly as she watched the ten year old boy pack a snowball in his bare hands and toss it at his older sister. The girl, Elizabeth, wrinkled up her pointed nose and went to hide behind her mother.

Alice swallowed dryly. "Do you have everything?" she asked the parents. A mountain wind whistled around them, plucking at loose jackets and hair. "Your food? The maps? Your money?"

Mr Hoffman patted the bag slung over his shoulder, then nodded at the bag his wife carried. They made a strange group in the snow: two adults fussing over their children, dressed in the best clothes they could find for a long hike, laden with enough layers to see them through the Austrian mountains. Alice caught a glint of metal and her eyes zeroed in on Mr Hoffman's neck.

She sighed and met his eyes. "You can't take that with you, Isaac."

He followed her gaze and his jaw tightened. "It's all I have left of my father." His hand closed around the star of David hanging from a chain on his neck.

Mrs Hofmann's eyes softened. "_Isaac_," she said, half exasperated and half sorrowful.

Alice stepped closer. The children were still mostly oblivious to what was going on: Elizabeth was kicking snow at her brother. "I want you to keep it," Alice told Isaac. "But you four have a long, hard journey east ahead of you. You might be getting out of Austria, but you're going to travel through other occupied countries, and those papers in your bag" – she cast a significant look at the bag his wife carried – "say that you are a poor, Austrian, _native German _family seeking a better life further away from the war. People will believe your papers. They _won't _believe them if they see _that_," she finished, touching Isaac's closed fist. His skin was cold.

For a few more moments Isaac stared her down, his jaw clenched under his beard and his eyes hard and dark. Beside him, his wife set a gentle hand on his arm.

Finally he closed his eyes and pulled the star of David over his head. "Please take care of it, Alice."

Alice accepted the warm metal chain with both hands and looked down at it. The star gleamed in the bright, cold light. She glanced up with a determined look. "I'll keep it here at the cabin," she said. "The fourth step in the staircase is creaky, if you check on the left side there's a way you can pry the board up. You'll find your father's necklace there. When you can come back."

Isaac nodded, his eyes gleaming. Both of them knew that with the way things were going, the chances of the Hofmanns being able to return to Austria were small.

Alice let out a breath and closed her hand around the star. "Are you sure you don't want to come in? Spend the night, and then set off tomorrow?"

Mrs Hofmann shook her head. "No, we don't want to wait another day. Besides, you've done so much for us already-"

"Don't worry about-"

"It's alright, really," Mrs Hofmann said with a small, sad smile. She was a striking woman, with thick dark hair and a nose that reminded Alice of Greek statues. "The sooner we leave, the better."

"I agree with you there," Alice sighed. She hesitated, then darted forward to wrap her arms around the warmly-dressed couple. They were really only about fifteen years older than her, but they reminded her of her mom and Matthias.

After a moment of hesitation, Mr and Mrs Hoffman reached to hold her back.

"Good luck," Alice murmured. Their plan was to walk and hitch rides all the way to neutral Turkey, and then maybe on to Israel. The length of such a journey boggled the mind, but it must be achieved.

"_Shalom_, Alice," murmured Isaac.

Alice pulled away and turned to the children. "Goodbye, you two troublemakers. How about a farewell hug?"

Elizabeth and Rupert stopped trying to smother each other in the snow and ran to Alice with their arms out. Alice dropped to her knees to hug them, not caring that the snow seeped through her stockings and bit at her knees. "You two listen to your parents, and remember to stay quiet no matter how scared you get. Alright?"

"Alright," they echoed. They'd already had many serious conversations with their parents about their upcoming journey.

Alice kissed the top of Rupert's dark head. She tried very hard not to think about how Tom had turned twelve last month. Only two years older than Rupert, and Rupert seemed so _tall. _"I'll see you later."

"When?" he asked as they pulled away.

That stumped her for a moment. She'd only really said it to make them feel better. She swallowed and faked a smile. "Once we're all safe and sound."

He thought about it, then: "Okay. Bye, Alice!"

Alice rose to her feet. The Hofmanns checked their children's clothes and boots once more, then hiked their bags over their shoulders and looked up the road, to where a narrow path lead up into the mountains. A narrowing, unmanned path that would eventually bring them to the border to Hungary. Hungary had joined the Axis powers late last month, but the Hofmanns should go unnoticed amongst the other poor and hungry families fleeing from the war.

Alice waved them off, faking a smile for the children, and then stood watching them tramp off into the distance. They crested a hill and looked back.

"Bye," Alice breathed. She waved to them.

The smallest figure raised his hand and shook it back and forth wildly, making her laugh. Then they vanished over the lip of the mountain.

Alice stood out in the road for what could have been hours, until flakes of snow began to drift out of the sky and catch in her hair. Alone, she pulled her bag from where it had been resting on the car's passenger seat and walked inside the cabin.

_Five days all to myself_.

Five days with nothing but a radio and a pile of old books to entertain herself. It would have sounded quite relaxing actually, if it weren't for the fact that she knew she'd be spending each minute wondering where the Hofmanns were – if they were warm enough, if they had enough to eat. If they'd been caught.

Alice ran a hand over her cold face and then went to the creaky staircase. She pried the fourth board free, eyed the star of David in her hand for a few moments longer than necessary, then slid it into that dark, unseen place. _Until we meet again._

* * *

**Adolf Hitler: ** ** _"_ ** ** _The year 1941 will be, I am convinced, the historical year of a great European New Order."_ **

* * *

1941

Alice returned to Vienna on January 1st to hear that there'd been a massive German air raid on London and that the night before, General Charles deGaulle (the exiled leader of the Free French) had called for French citizens to stay indoors on New Years Day from 3 to 4pm as a show of passive resistance. Alice wasn't sure how useful that'd be, but she liked how angry it made her uncle.

He only thought to ask her a single question about her solo trip to the mountains.

"It was a wonderful trip," she replied evenly. "Thank you."

He just took a drag of his cigarette in response.

Alice didn't get to hear if the French were able to carry off their passive resistance, because she had a performance at the Palais Pallavicini that afternoon. The family living there was throwing a luncheon/dinner for the elite who'd stayed in Vienna for the holiday period.

So she found herself in another glittering ballroom under ornate chandeliers, playing the piano and serenading the latest round of favored officials and generals. It was a sedate affair, more out of respect for everyone's hangovers from the night before rather than for the war – everything was going their way, after all, so why not celebrate? Germany had yet to suffer a major defeat.

Alice kept her voice low and her songs slow accordingly, which gave her the ability to people-watch. She noted who was new in town, and which Nazi officials were here. The Minister for Finance had finally left, which was probably a good sign for Austria's economy. But one of Goebbel's aides was back, speaking to her uncle and some other suited, cigarette-smoking men at the table nearest Alice.

"… will see the institution of a New Order, and-"

Alice let her voice fade away at the end of the chorus to an old Austrian folk song, and continued playing the melody on the piano so she could eavesdrop better.

"Very exciting," her uncle said. "And if anyone can achieve it, it will be the German race. The strongest one, after all."

"I see you've been paying attention to our Führer," the aide said laughingly. "Yes, our influence already extends across Europe from France to Norway to the Ukraine, with only the British to the west, barely holding their own, and the Russians to the east, who do not belong to us."

"Are they next?" asked someone else at the table.

The aide just took a drink, shaking his head as if to say _you know I can't talk about that._ Alice peered at him out of the corner of her eye. He had Aryan-blonde hair and blue eyes that right now seemed to _glitter._ "As I was saying," he said, "Europe has never been so united under a single power, save for maybe the Roman Empire. And we know what a civilizing impact they had. Once we have reordered the ethnographical relations…"

Alice listened to the conversation taking place at the table across from her as her fingers danced numbly on the piano and her ears burned. Her skin crawled at each word. It felt as if the universe were expanding around her and laying flat at her feet.

_Here is the future, _the aide seemed to promise.

And in Alice's mind, a question emerged: _What are you going to do about it?_

* * *

The door handle of Jilí's front door banged against the wall inside her apartment when Alice burst in.

At the table Jilí leapt to her feet with fear in her eyes, which abruptly turned to irritation when she saw Alice's flushed face. She'd been in the middle of preparing a care package for the Steiners.

"Alice, when my door bursts in I'm expecting to see-"

"We have to do something," Alice cut in. She stopped a few feet away from the table, her chest heaving and her hair falling in her face.

Jilí cocked her head. "What?"

Alice gestured at the cans of food on the table. "We've been hiding people, feeding them, keeping them safe, but what's the point?" Jilí's face darkened. "We've been able to protect, what, thirty people?"

"Alice-"

"No, just let me…" Alice strode across the creaky floorboards, yanked out a seat and sat down. Jilí slowly lowered back into her seat across the table. Alice met her eyes. "This isn't going away." She gestured out the window. "They will continue to spread, and invade, and _infect _the minds of our friends and neighbors like a tumor. We must try to get more people out of their reach, but what's the point if they just continue to expand? Who will stop them, if not us?"

"The Allies are-"

"They're trying to push back against an insatiable tide. We're in the heart of it, Jilí. We're _here. _We can do more. I know we can. I've been waiting for something to happen but I just realized that what I've been waiting for is _me._" She spread her hands. "We can put the word out, quietly, that we'll protect people. At the moment we've just been helping the people you and I know, but _those _people know more people who need help."

Alice leaned across the table. "There's a network out there, we just have to pull on the threads. I know people at the markets, we can set up a food network. I can cover it. And we can get more people out of the country. I'll take on more performances abroad and get back in contact with the people I know at the border to Switzerland." Her hands were flying now. "And you mentioned those people Gruber knows in France – I told you not to take the risk of contacting them, but if they can help us then let's do it."

She drew in a breath. "We've thought we're alone all this time but we're not, Jilí. We can't be. There are other people out there trying to put a stop to this… this insanity. I can't just stand by and watch it unfurl any longer, but I also can't do anything alone. We need _friends. _Or if not friends, then… then fellow soldiers."

She finally drew to a halt, breathless. Jilí watched her with a blank face.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence a smile crept across Jilí's face. The first genuine one Alice had seen from her since Franz died.

"There you are," Jilí grinned. "There you are, Alice. Welcome back."

* * *

**_~ Puppet no longer. Grow your wings. ~_ **


	23. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies that this is a day late, I've been travelling and haven't had time to edit this chapter. Read on!

**Nazi Minister of Propaganda Jospeh Goebbels: "** ** _Music affects the heart and emotions more than the intellect. Where then could the heart of a nation beat stronger than in the huge masses, in which the heart of a nation has found its true home_ ** **?"**

* * *

Until this point, Alice and Jilí had been planning day-to-day, week to week at the most. But for the first time they set their sights on the future.

That January the British forces began to push back against the Germans in North Africa. Alice followed their lead.

She began by saying _no _to her uncle. She stopped performing so much for the Nazis, but to appease her uncle she performed more and more in general; she booked public performances on her own and agreed to tour in several occupied and neutral countries: France, Hungary, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland. The music lurking in her mind woke up once more and she wrote four songs in the space of two weeks.

Her uncle was happy, the public was happy, the Nazis were more or less happy. Goebbel's propaganda department kept reaching out to her uncle to get Alice to perform for them, but Alice managed to stave them off.

"You seem… better," her uncle told her over a stiff one-on-one dinner at home one evening. He didn't look at her as he spoke. "Whatever has inspired you like this, keep doing it. The reviewers are much happier."

"I intend to, uncle," Alice replied with a polite smile.

Alice and Jilí had begun coordinating underground activities. They put out the word: _do you need help? Can you provide help? _And their network spread through quiet bars and hidden attics and the back of shops. They set up a regular food donation system under the radar of the police and most of Vienna's population; through friends and friends of friends they identified food vendors who might be willing to set a little aside for _the needy_ and transported it with the help of grandmothers, cousins, paper boys and in their own bags. They organised donations for the families of Jews, protestors, or political figures who had been arrested.

Alice returned to the old swing club with Jilí. She hadn't been since before the war started and she found that like everything else, it had changed. They still played forbidden records and spoke in English, but they'd started calling themselves the _swingjugend_ [swing youth]. Alice loved the place – the atmosphere was warm and there was always a gaggle of laughing, interesting people to fill the place with noise and song. A plinky piano sat in the corner.

"Do they know how dangerous this is?" Alice asked Jilí in a whisper as they sat in the club, watching two slightly tipsy eighteen year olds burst out onto the street loudly singing Nat King Cole.

Jilí sipped her drink. "Yes. But they don't care. Don't you remember feeling young and invincible?"

"No." Alice watched another group of teens across the room mockingly singing one of the Hitler Youth anthems on the wooden dancefloor. "And anyway, Jilí, we're only twenty two."

"Exactly. I've already exceeded my life expectancy."

"Don't say things like that," Alice frowned, but Jilí was smiling. "Where'd Hugo go?"

"He's just there." Jilí pointed across the club as their tall curly-haired friend made his way back through the gathered youths with a cup held over his head. He winked at them as he spun past a group of girls in laddered stockings and then dropped down in the seat across from them.

"Sorry, you were asking questions and I needed coffee." He drew in a deep whiff of his coffee, which smelled like black market stuff if Alice was any judge. Hugo was a gangly, effervescent nineteen year old and the unofficial leader of the group of kids who hung out at this club/café. Alice had met him years earlier the first time she came, when he'd been sixteen, trying anything to avoid conscription, and the life of the party. Well, he was still the life of the party. Hugo leaned back in his chair and beamed at them. "What did you lovely ladies want to know?"

"You said you knew people in… Hamburg?" Jilí asked, her chin in her hand. "They have a place like this?" She gestured around at the club.

Hugo nodded. "Hamburg, Berlin, Linz… there's groups like this all over. The Gestapo don't care except for when we get in fights with the Hitler Youth."

"Is that often?" Jilí asked with a raised eyebrow.

Hugo shrugged. "Only when they're being especially annoying."

"And you're in contact with these other kids?" Alice asked.

"Yes, letters and phone calls and such. And what with the war there's a lot of bed hopping between cities. Winnie from Margareten is engaged to one of the men from Berlin." Hugo cocked his head at her. "Are you going to sing today, Alice?"

"If you want to hear me sing these days you have to buy a ticket, Hugo," Alice said sweetly.

"You're a businesswoman, I can respect that. So why're you asking about our friends?"

Alice and Jilí glanced at each other. "We'd like you to put us in contact with them. Days like these, it pays to make friends and get news from other cities. And also… keep us in mind. If anything comes up."

"If anything comes up?" Hugo said with raised eyebrows.

This was the dangerous part. Alice eyed Hugo evenly. "You guys get in trouble a lot. You need help with that, you let us know."

"In return for…?"

Alice smiled. "Believe it or not, Hugo, I'd like to see you all stay out of trouble. So it's an end in itself. Jilí and I… we're just trying to make friends. Being lonely is dangerous."

Hugo nodded carefully. "Fair enough." He drained his coffee. "I'll ask around, get people to give you some addresses for you to get in contact with some people."

"Great," Alice said. "And tell them I'm touring soon and I'd like to meet them. Fellow tastes in music, and all that."

They spent the next few minutes chatting about the latest records and the stuff on the radio. Jilí asked Hugo how his girlfriend was doing, and he gushed about her and her new job.

Eventually, Hugo set his head on his hand and eyed the two of them. "You know, one of my friends in Hamburg was talking about how he's been learning French to speak to some new friends of theirs in Paris. Some friends who might not want their names circulated in public. That wouldn't have anything to do with why you two are here?"

"What do you mean?" Jilí cocked her head at him.

He just smiled. "You know… making friends. Did you guys know about that?"

Alice returned the smile. "We didn't. But it's always nice to learn something new."

* * *

Excerpt from article '_What were the Germans listening to?' _(2008):

_The Swingjugend (Swing Youth – a parody of the national socialist 'Hitler Youth') were a widespread group of German and Austrian teens which began as a celebration of jazz, swing, and American culture, and evolved into increasing nonviolent resistance against the Nazi powers following the outbreak of war…_

_… _ _with the increasing force and ferocity of the Nazi regime the Swingjugend were forced to continue their activities in secrecy. Most members did not organise politically, though some broke off into protest groups. Interestingly, some members of the group formed friendships with the famous Munich political resistance group the White Rose (which ended in tragedy in 1943), though no formal alliance was ever reached._

* * *

Alice started hosting parties of her own, inviting the usual crowd along with a few other, seemingly random newcomers: high-ups in the police force and gestapo, diplomats, a visitor from the German Abwehr (the Nazi intelligence agency), members of the Foreign Office. She gave them no special attention, but she did charm them with her song and with her attentive, smiling conversation. Alice had learned long ago that most men didn't want her to be intelligent in conversation – just receptive.

Alice and Jilí also set up what Jilí called their _wireless telephone network_, which was in reality mostly a gossip chain. If anyone heard about a new police strategy, they would tell one person and by the end of the day fifty more would know. If someone had a spare children's coat, a few hours later a recipient would be found. People asked about missing relatives and the network trickled back with scraps of rumor and potential sightings.

Resistance – because it was becoming rapidly apparent that this was what Alice and Jilí were up to – was difficult in the heart of Austria. They played a dangerous game of trust and suspicion: what to say to who. They kept their names out of it for the most part.

Alice spent her nights in a thick coat and a headscarf by Jilí's side, meeting with people in the dead of night and passing on information about where to get food, or shelter, or a way out of the country. And then that person played a game of trust in their turn; was this a true offer of help, or a death sentence?

Alice spent her days singing and making appearances around town. More often than not she had some dangerous thing or other in her bag – a wad of money or cans of food, usually. Flitting about the city as a socialite was a perfect excuse for meeting people across her ever-expanding group of friends.

Her career began to soar. It turned out all she'd needed was a modicum of enthusiasm for it.

Late that winter, Alice and Jilí's cautiously rising confidence crumbled at its foundation when the 'Jewish Emigration Office' introduced a new quota. 4500. Four thousand, five hundred people to be whisked up and sent east.

Despite their best warnings, rooms and attics across the city went dark. Stolen property got snatched by police, soldiers, and neighbors. Silence crept into spaces where there'd once been life.

Alice watched a canvas-covered truck drive east out of Vienna as she stood behind a window with her fingernails pressing so hard into her palms that her fingers creaked. She hadn't seen the soldiers force the families in at gunpoint as mothers and fathers wrapped their arms around their children, but she knew it had happened all the same. She'd heard the whispers.

She thought of the glimpses she'd had of the ghettos in Poland, where people were sent to waste away. She thought of whispers of soldiers in the east forcing people to take off their clothes and line up along the edge of a ditch. No way to find out if it was true. Not a doubt in her mind that it was.

_Do something._

_What can I do? Everything I have done was not enough to protect the people sitting in that truck._

The truck turned a corner and vanished from view.

* * *

Excerpt from Austrian newspaper _Kleine Zeitung_, February 27 1941 [Translated]:

_THIS EVENING'S RADIO: Listen to 'Whisper A Promise To Me', the latest hit record from The Siren, on RRG._

* * *

In February Alice came home from a secret meeting with a woman with ties to the communist party to find the maid Julia waiting with a card for her.

"It was delivered an hour ago, _Frä__u__lein._ No name, just an address."

Alice took the card with a tight smile and her heart thudded when she saw the address. She'd been there once before.

She fetched her coat from the hook and went right back out the door.

Alice had kept in touch with Anna Wödl since they first met last year. Anna had prevented the transfer of her son to Hartheim, but the system of mysteriously transferring and disappearing disabled children and adults had gone on. It was full public knowledge now. Anna had held a few demonstrations since, though they were quickly put down by the Gestapo, but she wasn't alone now – the Catholic Church had condemned the disappearances and pressure was increasing on the government. Alice thought that maybe, in this, they might be successful.

But when she knocked on the door to Anna Wödl's house in Alsergrund, her stomach churned with dread.

_Something has happened._

The door opened to Anna Wödl's pale, tear-stained face.

"No," Alice breathed.

Anna's eyes welled at the sight of the Siren in her doorstep, and after a moment she stepped back to let Alice in. Alice followed her into the darkened house. She strode past photos of Anna and her son on the walls, past the huddles of gathered family members talking together in low tones, and into the living room. Alice felt something rising within her. Bile, maybe. Maybe pure, unfettered desperation.

A photograph of her son Alfred as a baby rested on the mantelpiece. He was a round-faced boy, dressed in his white christening dress, his pale hair swept to the side and a toothless smile lifting his cheeks.

When Anna sank down beside the coffee table Alice found her tongue. "What… _how_?"

"They said it was pneumonia," Anna murmured. Her eyes, normally intense and passionate, had gone flat. "I have no way of knowing if that's true."

Alice lowered onto the sofa beside her and set a gentle hand on her back. "But I thought…"

"It seems the clinic he went to was no safer than Hartheim." Anna shuddered, and Alice put her arms around her. For a few minutes they sat like that: Anna shaking in Alice's arms as the heavy silence of the house oppressed them.

"I'm so sorry, Anna," Alice said. Her tongue felt leaden. "I should have-"

"We all did as much as we could," Anna croaked. "I've never fought so hard in my life and he still…" her voice cracked.

Alice smoothed her fingers over Anna's shoulder. "When is his funeral?"

"Tomorrow. I got his body back, which is more than other parents can say." Alice closed her eyes. A moment later, Anna added: "They kept his brain."

Alice's eyes snapped open. "What?"

"They cut out his brain and put it in a jar. For _science_. They didn't tell me that, of course, I found out from an orderly."

"They can't-"

"There's nothing they _can't_ do, Alice," Anna said in that same wooden tone. She drew in a long, deep breath and Alice felt it fill her chest. When she let out the breath again, four words escaped with it:

"He was only _six_."

* * *

Alice began her international tour in March, leaving Jilí and her cousin Vano to run things back in Vienna. She took to the stage with the songs she'd written before the war and the ones she'd written more recently, enthralling theaters and halls of people who had paid to hear her voice. In the Axis-allied countries she dined with officials in the evening and when they'd all gone to bed she went out into the city to meet the people who really ran the town. In neutral countries she got to sing whatever she wanted, because they certainly didn't want to hear German patriotic songs.

She swapped correspondences with everyone she could and entrenched herself in gossip. She made friends with everyone from diplomats to porters. In the occupied countries she disguised herself in men's clothing and crept through cities, poking at the edges of tensions and secrets.

She met with Hugo's friends in the _Swingjugend, _and as she'd suspected they were an excellent way of making friends in the counterculture of each city. They knew how to get around the Gestapo, and knew who needed the most help. Alice was careful not to give too much of herself away; either she didn't reveal her true intentions with the people who knew her name, or she visited in some form of disguise.

Her life became a blur of song, landscape rushing past train windows, her uncle's rigid face, her heart pounding as she crept through cities in the darkness, vague and dangerous conversations, and extravagant parties. Her tour kept away from the front lines of the war but she still saw it everywhere she went, in the dead eyes of a soldier and the scars in the earth glimpsed from a train window. Sometimes she closed her eyes and thought of home: Brooklyn, with the sun beating on the sidewalk and the feel of her friends by her sides. She pictured Steve: his flax-gold hair and tentative laughter. She could still mimic his voice, despite not having heard it for four long years.

She found herself in France once more, following whispers to those who were not willing to stand by and watch any longer. Resistance was just as dangerous in France, maybe even more so, as some French citizens were collaborating with the Nazis and informing on their own people.

But, as Alice found with mounting excitement, there _was _resistance there. Either she hadn't noticed last year or it hadn't appeared yet. She came across tiny pockets of people in illegal bars, smoking in alleys, creeping in and out of what looked like an abandoned warehouse. It was all small moments: a maid telling a courier about what one Nazi general had mentioned in a brothel, and the courier's knowing look before he started his car engine for a journey to Marseille. A pamphlet lying out on the street for anyone to see, declaring the Vichy government a farcical tool of the Nazis, until a police officer snatched it away. A Nazi Foreign Office representative in Paris complained to his friend at a party that somehow intelligence from France was leaking to Britain. Alice might not have noticed any of it if she hadn't been looking for it.

The biggest signs of resistance were when they got caught. Some students had been shot last year after demonstrating in Paris. Posters lined the streets, warning that anyone who '_resisted the might of the Nazis' _would be similarly shot.

Dressed as 'Al', Alice started talking. She told an old man with a veteran's attitude what she'd heard about the Nazi's _New Order_. She told a group of university students about how she'd _heard _that a certain three Nazi generals planned to meet in Vichy next week. She talked as much as she could about the things she'd overheard and seen, with no way of knowing if any of it was useful or if her audience could even pass it on to someone who could act on it. But it was _something_. In return she absorbed gossip and rumors like oxygen.

Some of the people she spoke to were living underground with no fixed address. These were the ones who really didn't trust her; the ones who caught a glimpse of a stranger's face and vanished back into the night. They were the ones Alice wanted to talk to the most, but every time they slipped away.

* * *

The moment Alice returned to Vienna she ditched her uncle and took a circuitous route to Jilí's house, only to find that her friend wasn't there. She pressed down her initial surge of worry and made her way to a café two streets over, where the owner didn't care who his patrons were as long as they paid.

When she spotted Jilí's ink black hair in the back corner, she let out a silent breath of relief and paced over, nodding to the waitress.

Jilí sat with her head bent over a cup of steaming coffee, her face shielded by her thick hair. Alice couldn't see her eyes, but she could tell that her friend's gaze rested on the plain silver wedding band on her left ring finger.

"I'm back," Alice said softly.

Jilí's head jerked up, eyes wide, and when she saw Alice standing over her in her brown coat she beamed and shot up. "You're back," she echoed, and pulled Alice in for a quick, tight hug. Alice patted her friend's back. "You're safe? Nothing happened?" Jilí held Alice at arm's length and looked her over.

"I wasn't exactly performing at the front," Alice replied with a small smile. "I'm fine, I promise. I've got lots to tell you."

Jilí gestured for Alice to take the seat across from her, then ordered a second coffee from the waitress. "I've got lots to tell you too," she said. Once the waitress had gone far enough away, she leaned across the table with glinting eyes. "Vano" – Jilí's cousin, who had joined in their efforts after being beat up by the Gestapo last year – "and I have been running the usual network, but we've also been looking around. Vano's friends at the university put him in contact with this political group of students, they're anti-Nazi," Jilí dropped her voice further. "They've been trying to spread the word."

Alice kept her voice low but didn't lean in or cover her mouth, or in any way appear that she was trying to speak secretly. "Spread the word how?"

"Vano's still earning their trust but he thinks they're writing articles and pamphlets, that sort of thing."

"Okay, tell him to-"

"Be careful, I know," Jilí said with a quick smile. "That's not it, though. While you were away the church has been kicking up a fuss."

"They don't like the Nazis' take on religion, I know."

The waitress came with Alice's coffee, and Alice and Jilí pretended to talk about edible arrangements until she left.

"It's not just that," Jilí said after telling Alice that fine cheeses were so hard to get these days. "The church has been organising donations for families in need, which has the Gestapo all riled. Your friend at the music school says that some of the clergy still support Prince Otto."

Alice rubbed her jaw thoughtfully. The Crown Prince of Austria had been living in exile in Basque for years, but she knew he'd strongly opposed fascism and the _Anschluss. _He could afford to, given that he didn't live here. The Nazis had put out an execution order for him. "Let's keep the church in mind, then," she said slowly. "But don't reach out. They're a target if they're being so public about this, and the last thing we need is to be aligned with the Prince."

Jilí nodded. "I agree. We've been funnelling some donations their way, though."

Alice nodded. "Anything else?"

Jilí cocked her head. "Maybe. Katrin – you know Katrin, she works at the library – her sweetheart is a labourer, she says he's been up in the western mountains since winter working on some big project: scientific installations." She shrugged. "Thought it might be worth mentioning. Not that it's likely that her sweetheart will stay hired for long, they've been using prisoners from the camps more and more as labor."

"We'll try to keep an eye on it," Alice replied as she sipped her coffee. A frown furrowed her brow. "Nazi science installations?"

"I think so. Katrin says the division running it don't dress much like Nazis, though."

"I'll ask some of my friends who work those kinds of jobs, see what they turn up," Alice said.

Jilí nodded and slowly turned her empty coffee cup in her hands. Her wedding band clinked against the side. After a few long moments, she said: "We're not alone, Alice."

Alice sighed, looking at her friend. Jilí didn't often let her sadness show, but she could see it now in her dark eyes. "I know, Jilí. We know there are people out there willing to help us. Let me tell you about the people I met abroad, it's not just us-"

"I mean in Austria." Jilí looked up. "I can _see _it – signs of people like us. The other day I saw a marking in chalk on a street sign near the city hall. _O5._ Yesterday I caught one of the _Swingjugend_ kids carving the same thing into a table at a café. But it's not just them doing it. It can't be."

"_O5_," Alice repeated slowly. Her mind churned, thinking over codes and symbols that might be similar. "O… maybe there are five letters after it. Maybe O_E_? E is the fifth letter of the alphabet."

Jilí's lips quirked. "I thought you might get it."

"OE? But what does it mean?"

"You might not have lived here long enough to know. _OE _is the short version of _Osterreich._"

"Austria," Alice translated. Her fingers fell still on her coffee cup. "You think…"

"It has to be some kind of resistance," Jilí said softly, her dark eyes gleaming. "It has to be. It's a sign. Of a free Austria."

Alice leaned back slowly, turning it over. Was it possible there were others like them out there, whispering in the dark, playing the terrifying game of trust and suspicion, scratching signs into walls in some hope of a reply? "_O5_," she breathed.

Jilí nodded and laced her fingers together. "Anyway, that's what I've been up to. Did you find anything interesting on your tour?"

Alice met her friend's eyes with a smile. "Perhaps we'd better order another coffee."

* * *

May 25, 1941

"… And then she says she's just been writing more songs, working with a composer from Hamburg." Bucky flipped over the one-page letter in his hand, shading his eyes from the beating sun. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the shouting, cheering crowd inside Ebbets Field stadium. "Some more stuff about her songs… then she's telling me off for not listening to my ma…"

"- she's right," Steve cut in. His eyes were on the field even as he listened to Bucky. "You should've quit that job months ago. They ain't treating you right."

"And where am I meant to work then, genius?" Bucky snarked. He watched the Philadelphia player go up to bat, dusting off his white trousers. "Watch this fella, he's tricky." He glanced back down at the letter from Alice. "Anyway, then she basically just talks shit about me until the end of the letter."

Steve glanced away from the field and smiled at the letter as if he were smiling at Alice herself. "Sounds like she's doing better."

The Dodgers pitcher, Pearson, pitched a curveball at the Phillies batter. It connected with the bat with an audible _crack _and went flying high and outside. Bucky grabbed his hair, crinkling the letter, and the crowd groaned.

"Damn it all," Steve huffed as the Phillies third base runner ran home. "We're tied now."

"Our innings, though."

The crowd at the Brooklyn field settled back in their seats, grumbling and scowling at the scoreboard. It was a bright, sunny Sunday and thousands of Dodgers supporters had come out to cheer on their team. Bucky had checked his mailbox on his way to the stadium with Steve, and both of them had been surprised to find a letter from Alice there. Letters came so irregularly now.

As the Dodgers batter strode up, Steve leaned back in his seat and rolled his head to look at the letter again. Alice's elegant script flowed down the page. "D'you think she's lonely?" Bucky glanced up in surprise. "She doesn't mention _people _in her letters anymore."

"Can't imagine Nazi Austria is the best place to be making friends," Bucky said darkly. "And I don't like that she's traveling through all these Axis countries. I mean I know she lives in one, but Italy? Greece? The Germans _just _invaded Greece."

"I doubt she's going anywhere near the fighting," Steve said. He shaded his eyes and squinted at the Brooklyn batter. "That's Pete Reiser. Reckon he'll make it?"

"He's young. Maybe. Ain't he the one that got his skull damn near cracked by a Phillies pitch last month?"

Steve hummed and eyed the letter. "She's hiding things."

"Of course she is, Steve, it's Alice." Bucky tapped the paper. "And she's sending letters that might be intercepted."

Steve's brow furrowed. "She promised me once that she'd always tell me her plans."

Bucky looked away from the field, his face softening at the tone in Steve's voice. The crowd was on the edge of their seats around them, the energy buzzing. "You think she's planning something?"

"It's _Alice_," Steve said. "She's always got plans. She wouldn't still be over there if she didn't."

"Well I just hope those plans involve her staying safe."

"You and me both, Bucky."

The _crack _of a pitch connecting with a bat and the crowd cheering jerked their attention away to the field again.

"That's three in the bag!" Bucky shouted, leaping to his feet as he watched the ball soar to the outfield. White-clad players sprinted across the green grass of Ebbets Field and the crowd positively _screamed._

Steve didn't remember jumping to his feet but before he knew it he was bouncing on his toes as he watched the batter, Reiser, reach third base. "They're waving him in!" he realized excitedly as the coach on the sideline waved his arms.

The outfielder tossed the ball to one of the infielders, who wound up and threw it home. Reiser's legs pumped across the diamond. Bucky and Steve grabbed each other's shoulders, jumping and shouting along with the rest of Ebbets Field, hearts pounding – and then Reiser slid home.

Anyone who'd still been sitting exploded to their feet as the stadium lost its collective mind.

"Pete Reiser with an inside-the-park grand slam!" cried the announcer over the roar of the crowd. "Oh my goodness. The crowd is going absolutely wild here at Ebbets Field… the Dodgers take the lead here, eight to four!"

Bucky flung his hands into the air, one in a fist and the other waving a letter from across the ocean. Steve jumped beside his friend, his lungs already wheezing, and thought _I can't wait to tell her about this._

* * *

Excerpt from: _S.H.I.E.L.D. Incident Report #508-GH-72 (October 9 2011) r.e. SR Containment Malfunction, _compiled by Agent P Coulson:

_… _ _the preliminary failure, of course, being the chronological inaccuracy of the containment unit in the form of a radio broadcast. In subsequent interviews the team responsible for the containment design reported that they were unaware of the baseball game broadcast's original date: May 25, 1941, Philadelphia Phillies vs Brooklyn Dodgers (in fact quite a memorable game for Brooklyn fans)._

_In their defense, the date was stated nowhere in the broadcast itself, and no physical evidence has been found of SR attending the game in question – no ticket stubs found in remaining files – but it was a clear oversight to use a game from approximately four years before his crash in the Arctic. A game from before his exposure to Project Rebirth, even._

_Recommendation: Next time, employ a historian. Or a baseball fan._

* * *

Under the fresh blue sky and crisp air of an Austrian summer, Alice traveled around Austria on a home tour. She met old friends, made some new ones, and traveled with a suitcase with a false bottom full of pamphlets. Jilí's cousin Vano had secured the trust of the university students who opposed the occupation of Austria and had offered to help distribute their publications. Through Vano, Alice and Jilí offered the students money for their printing presses and volunteers for distribution.

Alice had taken it upon herself to get the leaflets to other towns and cities across Austria.

She never saw the fruits of her labors. She passed brown bags full of paper to students in other towns who knew how to distribute them, and left them in post boxes and on doorstops.

It never appeared in the newspaper, of course, but when she returned to Vienna she heard rumors about showers, snowstorms, of pamphlets across Austria, with the title _WIDERSTEHEN _[_RESIST_].

The Gestapo never caught the students who had tossed the leaflets around libraries and government buildings and schools, nor did they catch the hand in the night who'd gotten the leaflets to them. They didn't find the printing presses, or the group of angry students who'd written it in the first place.

Alice read her copy of the leaflet and her heart soared at the denunciations of the Nazi party's persecution and rigid policies, and at the calls for resistance. Then she took her matchbook and set the leaflet aflame.

* * *

On June 22nd, Alice woke up to the news that Germany had invaded the Soviet Union.

Her stomach dropped. _One more country falling away beneath their feet_. Her uncle talked excitedly over breakfast, poring over the paper and predicting that Hitler would spend his Christmas in Moscow, and Alice ate silently.

She wondered if she was crazy for thinking that _anyone _could stand up to this ever-expanding tide.

A week later proved her sinking feeling right – the German Blitzkrieg had stormed across the Russian border and tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers were dead. Alice kept writing letters and visiting 'friends', strengthening her hold over the places she could. Rumors drifted back about _Einsatzgruppen_ [_operational groups_] roaming the occupied countries in search of Jews – not for arrest and deportation, but for murder. The rumors also told of locals helping the death groups. Each whisper chilled Alice to the bone, turning her hard as ice.

The letters from New York brought warmth and a reminder that life didn't have to _hurt. _In early July Steve wrote to Alice that New York had just gained two _television _stations.

_I don't have a television of course_, he wrote in his neat hand, _but Bucky's family and their neighbors pooled together to get one. It's electronic, and as far as I can tell the basic concept is that the station turns moving images into code, then sends the code via radio waves to television sets. WNBT's first program was a newsreader, but then they played the Dodgers game!_

_We watched at Bucky's place, and the whole _ _ street _ _ was packed in there to watch it. It's bizarre seeing something on a television screen as it happens. Had to shake myself a few times to remind myself I wasn't watching a movie._

_I wonder if they've figured out how to transmit television across the Atlantic._

Alice sometimes pressed her face into the pages he wrote her, inhaling the scent of ink and maybe, just faintly, of Steve.

* * *

Excerpt from '_1941: The Year of Change' _by Harley Harrison (1988), p. 31:

_1941 was the year that the Nazi policy toward Jews and other minorities shifted from deportation and imprisonment, to annihilation._

_'_ _Concentration camps' have come to be synonymous with the Nazi death-camps such as Auschwitz and Dachau, but before this time the term referred to any camp where people (usually prisoners of war) were detained for a period of time. The Germans did not invent concentration camps – indeed, before the second world war, countries like Britain, France, Denmark, Canada, and even the USA had established concentration camps for soldiers and civilians. Until WWII, the term was synonymous with enforced labor, cramped conditions, and occasionally disease and hunger – but not extinction._

_Those sent to concentration camps in 1941 did not know what the camps had become. They did not know to fear them._

* * *

In August, as the streets of Vienna sweltered and Alice's uncle planned yet another tour of France, Alice was at a party when she heard an acquaintance of hers in the Austrian police say: "Himmler has finally given us the go ahead to crack down on those traitorous _Swingjugend_." Alice did not respond to him, did not even give any indication that she'd heard at all, but the minute she left the party she ran to the old swing club to warn them.

Those who believed her accepted her offer of shelter. Hugo and some others went to stay with Jilí, others bunked with friends, and Alice found beds for the rest. They sent off letters of warning to their friends in other cities. But they weren't an organisation, not really – it was a collection of young people who didn't fit in with the marching blonde-haired rule-followers they were expected to be like. Many of them shrugged off Alice's warning.

Two days later the Gestapo kicked down the doors of the swing club. They arrested anyone inside and tracked down everyone else they could. Most of them were children.

Alice breathed a sigh of relief when she found out that mostly, those arrested had just had their hair cut and were sent back to school. But the crackdown had been throughout Germany and Austria, not just Vienna, and Alice heard of _Swingjugend _leaders elsewhere being sent to concentration camps.

When she saw Hugo that evening at Jilí's house he hugged her tightly, shaky and bright eyed. "Thank you, Alice," he breathed as he pulled away. "If we hadn't known-"

"But now you do," she said. She gestured for him to sit down, then cleared her throat. "Hugo, these orders came from _Heinrich Himmler_. The chief of the Gestapo. You're not in a counter-culture youth group anymore. You're in a prohibited minority." She watched Hugo's wide dark eyes as the words sank in. Alice leaned over to grip his arm. Jilí watched silently from the kitchen. "These kids trust you, Hugo. You _must _teach them to be careful. They can't dance in the street anymore. They can't fight the Hitler Youth. They can't go back to that club."

Hugo's fear sparked at that and his jaw tightened. "But-"

"No _buts_," Alice snapped. He shut his mouth. "You do what I say, or your friends will die."

His eyes widened again. "You think…?"

"You heard about Wilhelm in Hamburg, right? They shipped him off."

"To a _concentration camp_, that doesn't mean he'll never come back-"

"You can't afford to be naïve anymore, Hugo," Alice said softly. She sat at the table beside him with her hand still on his arm. "This is wartime, and the Nazis are winning. And even though they're winning, they're afraid. Afraid of people who are _different. _That means people like Jilí, and now it means people like you. The Nazis can't afford to let difference exist. They _won't_ let it exist."

They sat in silence for a few long moments as Hugo looked down at his hands in his lap. Alice glanced over to Jilí, and Jilí nodded solemnly.

Finally, Hugo looked up. Tears clung to his lashes. "What can I do?"

Alice squeezed arm and smiled. "I'm glad you asked."

* * *

That week, Alice watched with wide eyes as the Nazi government caved to pressure from the Catholic and Protestant Church, the Austrian Communist Party, and countless other organisations, and abolished their T4 policy – the one that had been euthanizing the 'incurably sick' since the start of the war.

Alice spent the night at Anna Wödl's, holding her as she cried into her handkerchief, but when she walked back at dawn the next morning she felt only darkness.

_They won't stop_, she thought as she eyed a massive red swastika flag hanging from a corner of a building. _They won't ever stop, until we stop them._

* * *

Excerpt from '_The Killing Programs'_ by Paula Weller (2003), p. 54:

_Hitler publicly halted the Aktion T4 program in August of 1941: they'd reached their target of 70,000 'forced euthanisations', and personnel were needed for the Soviet front. But despite the public "roll back" of the program, killing of disabled and mentally ill children and adults continued in secrecy._

_Some historians posit that the program was continued by the Nazi powers, to align with their other 1941 policies such as the Einsatzgruppen and the lethalization of concentration camps, which had shifted toward obliteration of 'undesirables'. Others argue that there is no evidence for continued national organisation of the killings, and that the killings likely continued under the direction of local hospital directors and doctors._

_Whatever the case, it is certain that by the end of 1941 another 30,000 patients had been killed._

* * *

A month later, Alice lay on the floor of Jilí's apartment (there wasn't anywhere else to rest) with her hands folded behind her head and her eyes on the ceiling. She listened to the rustle of paper as Jilí looked over her tour itinerary at the table.

"It's only a week long trip," Jilí said wryly. "You think you'll have time for all this?"

"I'll make time," Alice said with a concealed smile. She rolled so she could see her friend. "Quiz me."

Jilí held her gaze for a few moments, then set down the itinerary of Alice's _official _activities and crossed one ankle over the other. "Alright. How are you going to meet the contact in Paris?"

"After my performance on the second day, I'm going to _rue des Rosiers. _I'll wait under the streetlight outside _L'Etoile Boulangerie_ at a quarter past four, and the contact will find me," Alice recited. "And then it's anybody's guess."

"What are you going to tell this person?"

"I'll offer them our friendship. Monetary support, escape routes, an exchange of information."

Jilí's face turned hard, distrustful. "You know you'll have to tell this person your real name."

Alice sighed. "Hugo's sister studied in France for three years, and she says we can trust this person. Says she's connected."

"Hugo's sister is only twenty-"

"And I've only just turned twenty three," Alice finished for her. "I've looked into this, Jilí. It's the best way." Jilí's mouth turned down. "I'm also going to try to pass on what I heard about those troop movements on the Eastern Front."

"They're _French-_"

"I know, but if they know anyone-"

"_Alice-_"

"I have to try, Jilí." Alice rolled to her feet and went over to hug her friend, leaning over her chair from behind. Her cheek pressed against the top of Jilí's head. "I'll be back in no time."

She felt Jilí's scowl against the side of her arm. "You'd better be."


	24. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating a little early because this one's a bit short. Next chapter will be extra long to make up for it :) Don't forget to leave a comment!

**Haruki Murakami: "****_Precipitate as weather, she appeared from somewhere, then evaporated, leaving only memory._ ** **"**

* * *

Two days later Alice stood center-stage at the _Théâtre Mogador_ in a lavender gown with trailing gossamer sleeves, near blinded by the stage lights as she sailed her way through _Nessun Dorma. _Not the most popular choice of song in Paris given that it was Italian, but beyond the dazzling lights she sensed that every single person in her nearly two-thousand strong audience sat spellbound.

_Listen_, she coaxed with her voice, lilting one hand with the rise of a note. She closed her eyes. _Let me break your heart._

The orchestra came in before the final rise and she opened her eyes, taking in what she could see of the front row. Seven men in Nazi uniforms sat front and center. One of them had tears in his eyes.

Alice closed her eyes again a moment before she opened her mouth for the final aria.

She'd arrived in France only that morning, and had barely had time to change after the train ride before she was being shuffled backstage at the theater. Paris was much the same as the last time she'd visited; people walked quickly down the streets with their heads down. Soldiers seemed to wait at every corner. It seemed the new law forcing Jews to wear yellow stars had been enforced here as well as in Austria, as she'd glimpsed a few men and women scurrying past with fabric stars on their coats. Alice felt a strange pressure between her eyes when she saw them, as if halfway between crying and screaming.

At the train station she'd noticed a large _V _graffitied over one of the station boards. She'd seen the same letter carved into the sidewalk outside the theater. She couldn't puzzle out a reason.

_Curiouser and curiouser._

A smile quirked Alice's lips a moment before she let out her breath in the soaring, earthshaking final lines of the song:

"_All'alba vincerò!_" [_At dawn, I will win_] Her hands rose by her sides and her sleeves rose off the floor like wings._ "__Vincerò, vincerò!"_ [_I will win, I will win_].

_Just watch me._

* * *

Standing under a streetlight on a Parisian boulevard a few hours later, Alice self-consciously wiped the corner of her sleeve at the side of her face, grimacing when it came away with a smudge of makeup. She'd finished at the theater, dressed in her 'Al' getup, and come straight to _Rue des Rosiers_. She'd never worn these clothes in daylight before, but no one passing by gave her a second glance.

She'd tucked her hair into a worn grey cap, bound her chest under a loose white shirt tucked into brown trousers, and an oversized coat hung over her shoulders. She looked like a young man in clothes a size too big for him. She'd worked out how to alter her bearing and facial expression to further fool people – she slouched more, clenched her jaw, swung her arms when she walked. Oftentimes she found herself mimicking her memory of Steve. It made her feel braver.

Fifteen minutes later, Alice had just noticed a small _V _etched into the side of the streetlamp when a light voice spoke in French behind her:

"_Georg!_ How wonderful to see you again, how is your mother?"

Alice turned with a pleasant smile on her face to see a woman, maybe in her mid-forties, with grey-streaked dark hair and a wide face with deep-set eyes. The woman was smiling at Alice, but her eyes flicked over her with an intensely perceptive look.

"Louise," Alice said in a soft voice, dipping her head. The woman's eyes became razor-focused. "My mother has a slight fever, but she will be well in no time."

Code phrases exchanged, the woman took Alice's arm. "Come, let's speak somewhere more comfortable."

Alice let the older woman steer her down the street and around the corner, their footsteps in time and their mouths shut. To anyone else they appeared to be a woman and her younger male acquaintance taking a stroll. The woman's hand was warm on Alice's arm. Her heart thudded when they turned down a quieter street and came to a green door.

The woman knocked six times, and after thirty seconds a man about her age cracked the door open, peered at them both, and then let them in.

"We'll be in the sitting room," the woman curtly told the man, then steered Alice in. She got a glimpse of a small, sparsely decorated home before she was bundled into a stuffy room with the curtains drawn. A sofa had been pushed all the way up against the wall and there was a bookshelf in the corner, but not much else in the room other than that.

Alice's contact shut the door behind her then turned to face Alice. Her eyes flicked over her.

"You are not a man," said the woman. Her voice was even.

Alice swallowed. _Great disguise, Moser. _"No, I…" she reached up and took off her cap, straightening into her natural posture as her hair fell loose to her shoulders. She held the cap in both hands and watched the woman's eyes narrow. "I'm not."

The woman eyed her. "I recognize you." She cocked her head, thinking. "How do I know you?"

Alice drew in a deep breath. _Moment of truth._ "My name's Alice Moser."

The woman's eyes widened. Alice got the sense she didn't often show surprise. "_La Sirene_." She crossed her arms and shot Alice another evaluating look. "Well, that is a surprise. Tell me why the Siren's in France dressed as a man and seeking out resistance?"

"I think Hugo's sister – Marie – I think she wrote to you-"

The woman waved a hand. "I know Marie well, and I trust her, but she can be impulsive." She took a step closer. "I want _you _to explain yourself."

Alice lifted her chin. "I'm here because I want to help. We… we have a small group in Vienna, of people trying to help-"

"Help who?"

"Anyone who needs it. Jews. Romani. The sick. People who speak out." Alice ran a hand through her hair. "To be honest, anyone who's not a Nazi." The other woman's eyes flashed, and Alice continued. "I'm not going to pretend there's a lot we can do. Most of us are kids, students, plenty are in hiding themselves. But we learned that we're not alone in Vienna, and we… we think we might be stronger together."

The woman's eyes darkened. "How can you help?"

"We've been keeping people safe. We have some money, we can offer it if you're in need. We know people at the borders of most central European countries and we have access to forgers. We can help people flee east, if that's what they want. In return, we want to help people flee west – eastward is a long journey through occupied countries, but we've heard of people fleeing across the Channel to England." The woman's eyes flashed again. "And we learn things. We want to share those things." Alice sensed the woman's question before she spoke it. "New policies. Police movements. Where people will be, when."

"How."

"Rumors and gossip mostly." Alice swallowed again. "And I… my uncle's well connected, we go to a lot of parties. I hear things."

"Hm." The woman finally tore her eyes away from Alice and paced the length of the room. Up to the closed-off window, then back, her eyes on the ground and her hands folded behind her back. Alice stood with her hat in her hand, barely daring to breathe.

Finally the woman looked up again. "Why should I trust you?"

Alice spread her hands. "I don't expect you to. Not fully. But I…" she met the woman's eyes. "I've told you my name. I've been plain about what I've been doing and what I want to do. You could destroy me if you wanted to. Hell, you could make me disappear right now and no one would know where I've gone."

The woman's eyebrow lifted. "We're not in the habit of murdering young women, Ms Moser."

_That's a relief. _She shrugged. "What I mean is… I'm in this. My name on the line, my life on the line. I want this war to _end, _and beyond that I want the Nazis to end. I don't know how, but I want it more than anything else." Her voice cracked. "That… that has to be enough."

The woman's dark eyes took Alice in. Alice had never felt so… _judged_ before in her life. She'd stood on a stage in front of almost two thousand people only an hour ago, but _this _made her gut churn and her head swim. In the woman's eyes she saw the promise of ruin.

_The game of trust and suspicion._

Alice let out a breath.

A moment later the woman held out her hand. "It's nice to meet you, Alice Moser. My name's Vera Izard. Welcome to the OCM."

* * *

Alice spent the rest of her week at performances, parties, and dressed as a man as she followed Vera Izard around the secret places of Paris. The OCM, she'd found out, stood for the _Organisation_ _Civile et Militaire, _and… that was about all Vera would tell her. Alice met some other members, and from what she could tell they were a mix of conservatives who didn't like the Germans, and socialists – they worked as bankers, lawyers, scholars, laborers, and soldiers.

Alice learned from Vera, taking note of how she only gave away as much as she needed to, and in return passed on some tricks of her own: how to hide keys and letters on your person if you didn't have a bag, how to set up a food network (get the grocers to set aside a portion of food, and if anyone comes asking imply that it was the Nazi generals taking more than their fair share. If the generals came asking, blame it on the troops).

Only Vera knew Alice's real name. Everyone else came to know her as _Al_, the soft-spoken young man with a perfect Parisian accent and a host of handy tricks up his sleeve.

Vera said nothing explicitly, but Alice figured that the OCM had connections to Britain and British agents in France, as well as to the resistance groups carrying out sabotage and attacks against German troops and assassinating German officials in France. Vera pressed a brochure titled _Manuel du Légionnaire _into Alice's hand and explained 'this was published to educate French people who wished to join the Germans fighting on the Eastern Front'. Alice read it that night and smiled when she realized that this information was intended to spread no further than France itself: the manual explained how to make bombs and shoot guns, how to carry out sabotage against various military installations such as factories, and how to avoid detection. Alice committed the information and diagrams to memory and then put the manual in her fire grate.

Alice and Vera established a set of ciphers so they could exchange letters once Alice went back to Vienna, without fear of censorship. On the second last day they walked past a German truck with a giant chalk _V _drawn on the side.

"What's with the _V_s?" Alice asked.

Vera turned her head slightly and gave Alice a funny look. "What do you mean?"

Alice didn't point at the truck, as there were soldiers looking. "I've been seeing it everywhere."

Vera smiled. "It's a symbol we picked up from our British neighbors."

"And it means…?"

Vera spread her index and middle finger in a _V _and shot Alice a small smile. "_La Victoire_." [_Victory_].

A thrill went down Alice's spine.

* * *

Excerpt from '_The_ "_Refus Absurde": Life in Nazi Occupied France, 1940' _by Pierre Montague (1997), p 24

_In the face of immense force and racial segregation from their new oppressors, French citizens began to amass a resistance (_ _La Résistance). _ _Individuals began recruiting others for resistance and arranging counter-German activities such as sabotage, passing information to Britain (to the newly-founded intelligence Special Operations Group), and assisting code breakers from Poland and Britain. Many of these individuals would later become important leaders when many individual resistance cells mass organized in 1943 (the United Resistance Movement)._

_…_

_The early resistance cells included… 4) The Organisation Civile et Militaire (OCM), with just a few hundred members in late 1941 which ballooned to over forty thousand within two years. Four thousand of these were to give their lives for the resistance._

* * *

After her last performance in Paris, a morning concert at the Salle Wagram, Alice decided to stroll around the 8th Arrondissement before a scheduled lunch with her uncle at the hotel before their 1pm train.

It felt strange to be sightseeing when so much of her time in France had been spent working; either performing or creeping through back streets and meeting strangers. From here she could see the Eiffel Tower stretching into the sky, and when she crossed a road she looked up to see the Arc de Triomphe at the end of it. She could almost pretend she was a normal tourist, but then she spotted a roadblock of German trucks and a tank at the end of the road and her smile soured.

She turned left down a shopping street and tried to lose herself. The autumn air in Paris smelled like fresh cooking bread and engine exhaust, and despite the crowds on the street the atmosphere felt _muted_. Like a photograph that hadn't quite come out right in the darkroom. Alice huddled further into her coat.

The subdued quality to the air shattered when gunshots rang out.

Alice froze for a moment, instantly recognizing the loud _cracks _for what they were; she might not be a soldier, but she'd fired guns before out the back of the old church in Brooklyn. Never anything of _this_ caliber though.

She unfroze when the crowd screamed. She ducked, staggered back, and then as the gunshots kept shattering the air the people on the street started running. Alice was forced to run with them down the paved street back the way she'd come, her elbows knocking against others and her pounding footsteps jarring her jaw as she ran. She saw a sign on the side of the street shatter as a bullet zinged through it. She ducked her head. She thought the gunshots were coming from behind, firing off every few seconds, but she wasn't sure what was going on. _We're in the middle of Paris_, she thought numbly as a man barged into her side and nearly knocked her over. _This isn't meant to be what war is like._

"_Saboteure_!" shouted a man in German, followed by more shots. A woman next to Alice screamed.

A dark alleyway yawned open to her right and Alice shoved sideways into it. The crowd was panicking, running in any direction they could, and a few others darted into the alleyway along with Alice. They pelted down the street with their shoes slapping on the pavement.

Then Alice heard the loudest gunshot yet. It seemed to erupt from right behind her so she dove sideways, behind a metal trash can outside someone's back doorstep. Her shoulder banged against the wall as she scrambled for cover.

Alice hunched into a ball behind the trash can and gripped her knees, her heart pounding so loud against her ribs she thought it must be audible and her breaths coming short and sharp down her ragged throat. She heard screams and running footsteps in the direction of the main street.

After a few seconds of mind-numbing, paralyzing fear, Alice peeked around the side of the trash can. The crowd of people running down the street had thinned, and she caught a few flashes of terrified faces as they sprinted past.

"_Saboteur Verbrecher_!" [_Saboteur criminal!] _came another deep shout. A moment later a young man in overalls with a cap pulled low over his face dashed into view, glancing over his shoulder as he ran.

_Crack_.

She thought the man had tripped, but when he fell to the ground his head smacked against the pavement and bounced twice before falling still. His face was turned toward the alley. Alice saw his eyes go dead.

Alice felt as if ice had crept into her heart as she stared at the dead man lying on the street. She blinked, her eyes burning, and saw the scarlet glint of blood pooling around him.

A second later thudding footsteps approached and Alice caught a glimpse of a German soldier's uniform before she whipped back behind the trashcan.

"_Du hast ihn,_" [_You got him_,] she heard a man's voice say, with a Berlin accent.

There was a pause, and Alice heard the sound of clothing rustling, a boot scraping pavement. "_Französischer Bastard_," [_French bastard_], came a second voice. "_Es wird Tage dauern, bis der Panzer repariert ist._" [_It'll take days to fix the tank_].

_The roadblock_, Alice realized. She heard more movement and shoved her fist into her mouth.

She crouched behind the trashcan for what felt like hours, listening to the German soldiers curse the dead man and drag his body away. When she couldn't hear them any longer she counted to one hundred, then crept away the alleyway. She didn't look over her shoulder, but she pictured the empty street with the cooling pool of blood on it all the same.

She emerged from the alleyway onto another street. It was empty. Heart in her mouth, she walked as fast as she could back through the now deathly quiet streets, past the Arc de Triomphe, back to the hotel.

"There you are," said her uncle when she appeared in the dining hall. He had pulled his pocketwatch out of his breast pocket and frowned at her when she arrived. "Hurry now, we'll miss our train if we don't eat quickly."

Alice followed him to the table silently. Her knees felt wobbly as she sat down across from him, and her hands shook when she reached to pick up her waterglass.

"Alice?"

She flinched and looked up at her uncle, who was still frowning at her. His deep-set eyes looked impatient.

"What's the matter?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Took a sip of water and opened it again. "Nothing," she breathed. "I'm fine."

"Hm." His eyes slid away from her and he picked up his menu.

Alice stared at her empty plate, her ears ringing, as her uncle called the waiter over and ordered for both of them. She was looking at white, spotless china, but all she saw was the blank, blue eyes of the young man lying in the street.

* * *

Excerpt from article _'La Marseillaise: History of a Song_' by Henri Marcelle (2004)

_Following the swift defeat of France in 1940, the Nazi powers quickly banned any French citizen from singing their national anthem (it had previously been banned by French rulers three times before). An understandable decision, given that the song is a seven-versed war cry, but this led to the secret singing of the anthem becoming a rallying call for the budding French resistance._

_…_

_Verse 4:_

_'_ _Tremblez, tyrans! et vous, perfides,_ _ [Tremble, tyrants! And you, traitors,]_ _  
L'opprobre de tous les partis, [The disgrace of all groups,]  
Tremblez! vos projets parricides [Tremble! Your parricidal plans]  
Vont enfin recevoir leur prix. [Will finally pay the price.]  
Tout est soldat pour vous combattre. [Everyone is a soldier to fight you.]  
S'ils tombent, nos jeunes héros, [If they fall, our young heroes,]  
La France en produit de nouveaux, [France will make more]  
Contre vous tout prêts à se batter. [Ready to battle you.]_

* * *

When the towncar from the train station dropped them at the house in Vienna, Alice rushed upstairs to put her trunk away, dressed, and rushed back down again.

She tried not to break into a run as she made her way to Jilí's apartment, her mind abuzz with _la Victoire _and the OCM and their interesting connections. She still wasn't sure whether or not to tell Jilí about the shooting she'd witnessed. She wanted to tell _someone _but it would only make Jilí worry more.

She climbed up the stairs of the narrow apartment building two at a time and tapped her fist against Jilí's door.

The door creaked open under her knuckles.

Alice's heart dropped so hard and so fast that she was sure it would bring her to her knees. She paused a moment to let out a shaky breath.

The gap in the doorway widened at a push from her fingertips, and Alice's chin trembled when she saw that the apartment within was dark. And cold. She paced in, holding her breath. Her footsteps creaked on the floor.

The apartment looked just like it had when she left: chairs pushed neatly against the bare table, the kitchen filled with the necessities for living. A glimpse of Jilí's cot in the tiny bedroom. The windows were still papered over.

Alice walked the perimeter of the room, her eyes on everything for some sort of _sign. _But there was nothing here – not even a bootprint or a scuff mark to give her some idea. Jilí's coat was gone. Cans of food rested on the table, ready to be packed.

After looking around for a few minutes, Alice went into Jilí's bedroom and pried up the loose floorboard under her cot. There, in the gap in the floor, rested Jilí's secret things: the drawing of her and Franz from Steve, some papers relating to their work (not much, they wrote down as little as possible as a rule), and some money. Untouched.

When Alice walked out of the apartment a minute later with Jilí's secret possessions in her coat pocket, her stomach churned. She knew what this meant.

She went straight to Jilí's cousin Vano's place. He lived in a loft apartment with seven other men, who all looked up when she opened the door without knocking.

Alice stood in the doorway, her heart pounding and her breath short, and her focus zeroed in on the dark-haired Vano. "Where is she," she said flatly.

Vano sat at the table, holding a pen over a single piece of paper. He looked up at Alice with big, distraught eyes, and Alice felt her heart turn to stone.

"I was just writing to you," he said softly. The entire apartment was silent, like the hush in a library or a graveyard. Alice felt seven pairs of eyes on her. "I didn't know when you were getting back. She's…" he swallowed. "No one's seen her since Wednesday."

_It's Sunday. _Alice grasped the side of the door jamb and let out a breath. "What's… where have you looked?"

A tear spilled down Vano's cheek. "Everywhere."

* * *

Alice spent the next week searching. Vano helped her, as did Hugo and their other friends. She asked everyone she could, everyone she could possibly think of. The last anyone saw of Jilí she was delivering food and clothes to the Steiners, who were hiding in the back room of an abandoned church. After that… no one knew _anything. _Alice warned the Steiners to be on their guard just in case.

She found out quickly that there'd been another round of deportations of Jews from Vienna, along with everyone else the Nazi's didn't like. Like the Romani people. She learned of other friends of hers who'd gone missing, but people had _seen _their arrests, they knew where they'd gone. Jilí was just… gone.

Alice visited families who wore yellow stars on their clothes and looked at her with fear in their eyes.

She walked the streets from one lead or idea to another, her face calm and her strides purposeful. She barely came home, and that was only to sleep. She walked the streets at night, alone more often than not. She went back to the alley where they'd found Franz almost three years ago.

The glimpses she caught of herself in darkened windows or puddles reminded her of the stories her mother used to tell her about the _Druden_, the nightmarish wraiths and witches who haunted the night and went screeching through the streets on the Wild Hunt. The only difference was that Alice was completely and utterly silent. Her screams stayed in her own mind.

On her sixth day of searching Alice went in her desperation to a man she knew in the police force and tried to coax him into telling her if anyone had been arrested lately. He responded eagerly to her flirting, but gave away nothing. She even asked her maid Julia if Jilí had come to the house for some reason. Julia just shook her head mutely.

Finally she found herself in the basement dwelling of Noah, a Jew who had fled from a train packed full of terrified people headed east two months ago by squeezing out of a tiny gap in the window as the train was going sixty miles an hour through Czechoslovakia. He'd broken both his legs, but eventually made his way to Austria and hid right in the heart of Vienna.

Alice had heard his story briefly when she first met him last month, while delivering food. He lived up to his story: he was rail-thin, with arms like sparrow bones and a prematurely grey beard concealing the lower half of his face. He had bright, suspicious eyes that gleamed out of his face.

As Alice explained why she'd come and who she was looking for, his eyes slowly turned compassionate. She recalled that he'd been a father, once.

"I know you made part of the journey," she said in a shaky voice. "Do you have any advice for how I can find her? Where to look? If… if she did end up on one of those trains."

She fell silent, twisting her fingers together.

Noah leaned over where he sat on a paint can and looked into her eyes. "Wherever Jilí is," he said frankly, "there is no saving her, Alice. She is dead."

Alice sat down hard, as if she'd had her strings cut, and a cry bubbled up her throat and escaped her lips before she could stop it. She doubled over and gripped her hair in her hands.

Noah didn't move from where he sat but he made a low, shushing sound as if trying to quiet a baby.

Alice stared into the darkness as she pressed her face to her knees and felt her whole body shake.

_She is dead._

There was no way to know if Jilí was gone because of who she was – Romani, _other_ – or because of what she and Alice had been doing. No way of knowing if Alice got her killed.

"Shh, shh," murmured Noah.

Noah had only gone part of the way on that train. And he was one of so many who'd vanished with no clear idea of the destination. Even Alice with all her whispers didn't know. But she knew it must be so much worse than here, and that terrified her.

Maybe Jilí hadn't even made it to a train.

Alice gripped her head on her hands and rocked herself where she sat on a creaking crate in a dusty basement, as a man who'd lost everything shushed her into silence.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_The Vanished_' by Sarah Lille (1999)

_Throughout history there are stories of people vanishing without a trace, leaving little sign as to their fate. Explorers who never came home, children who left nothing but their bike behind on the sidewalk, men and women who simply dropped out of their lives without a hint as to where they have gone. Sometimes whole civilizations and entire airplanes full of people simply disappear, no matter how hard we search for them. Lists of missing people grow by the hundreds each year._

_To this day they live in a perpetual limbo of unknowing: not dead, not alive._

_Just gone._

* * *

Alice didn't remember walking back home from Noah's basement. She remembered feeling cold, so cold that she shoved her fingers into her armpits for fear they'd fall off like she'd seen happen to some people in winter. But it was only September. Their first snow wouldn't fall for months.

She remembered opening the door to her uncle's house, shivering so hard her teeth chattered. She remembered a flustered Julia appearing before her and yanking her out of her coat.

"You've been gone all day!" Julia chided. "Herr Huber has been leaving notes for you since Tuesday, did you get any of them?"

"Notes?" Alice asked. Her lips felt numb.

"We're having a dinner party this evening, with some generals visiting from the Italian front and a man from Herr Goebbels' department…" Julia chattered on, hastening Alice out of her boots and upstairs, and Alice could only blink at her. "Let's get you dressed and ready, you've only got twenty minutes-"

Alice let Julia push her into her room and sit her down at the dresser. Alice's eyes fell to the second drawer, which had the false bottom with her letters from Steve and Jilí's possessions.

_Dear Steve, _she thought. _Everyone around me dies. Yours, Alice._

Her heart did a strange flutter-jump-crash which brought a tear spilling from her eye. She looked up at herself in the mirror and stared at the wet trail down her cheek.

Julia came back from the wardrobe with her arms full of dresses, still talking, and Alice swiped away the tear.

_You must hide_.

The thought shimmered to the front of her mind like an illusion in a frozen desert. Alice drew in a hiccupping breath and stared back at her own wide, glittering eyes. _You must hide every part of your true self from the world._

The thought felt like Jilí. It felt like her mother and her father, loving each other and hiding it away. It felt like Tom. It felt like Bucky, and Steve, and everyone else she loved and had ever loved.

The thought _sounded _like herself.

"Which dress for the dinner?" Julia asked, breaking into Alice's reverie. Alice carefully brushed tears out of her eyelashes and looked up at the two dresses her maid held up: a bright white frock with lacing, and a dark navy. _I don't care._

"The navy," Alice said. She turned back to the mirror and waited for Julia to start fixing her hair.

Alice didn't pay any attention for the first twenty minutes of the dinner. Her uncle had invited eight men and two women, all of whom arrived in some form of uniform or expensive outfit. Alice smiled when spoken to and nodded when asked a question, but she couldn't bring herself to speak. The chandelier hanging over the dinner table was too bright, the clink of glasses and cutlery sounded like screaming in her ears.

Her whole body was rigid, her face felt tight. She could feel her uncle casting glances her way but she couldn't look at him.

As Julia and the manservant took away the salads, Alice looked up and finally registered the faces around her. Her shock ebbed as they all sipped white wine. When Julia brought out the main courses, Alice's shock faded away and she realized that all that was left under it was howling, ice-cold _rage._

It took her by surprise and she spluttered as she took a sip of her wine. She waved off the concerned looks and the offer of a napkin. She set a hand to her chest, sure that the freezing anger cracking inside her would chill her fingers, but all she felt was her own heartbeat.

She looked up.

Eleven people sat around a finely-arranged dinner table with her, laughing at her uncle's joke. Alice stiffened in her seat.

She wanted to _scream _at them. She wanted to tear the medals off the generals' uniforms and smash their glasses over their heads. She wanted to throw her uncle through the double-glazed panes of his mansion windows.

She wanted to scream at these men for taking Jilí from her, for coming in with their hate and fear and tearing the world apart. How could they sit here and drink and smile?

But Alice didn't scream at them. She sat perfectly still and took small bites of her meal, smiling politely when her neighbor spoke. She looked around and took in the laughter, the faces, the uniforms.

And she thought: _I will do everything in my power to bring you to your knees._

The thought straightened Alice's spine and turned her face into marble.

The Army general sitting across from her cleared his throat and looked at her. Alice met his gaze. "You look very pretty tonight, _Frä__u__lein_ Moser." He held up his wine glass.

Alice leaned over and clinked her glass against his. "Thank you." Her lips parted and she bared her teeth in a pretty, dazzling smile.

* * *

** _~ Sing to me of grief and pain,_ **   
_ **I know them well,** _   
**_I know their names_. ~**


	25. Chapter Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Issa long one.

That night Alice got to work.

Once she'd undressed after dinner she pulled open the false bottom of her drawer and removed everything that could possibly get her caught: her letters from Steve, Bucky, and Tom, Jilí's things, and her jazz records. She put it all in a cardboard box and once she was sure everyone in the house was asleep, she went out to the garden and buried the box behind the rose bushes. It would be smarter to destroy it all, but that would _mean _something, and Alice wasn't' read to face that. Burying it all was just… saving it for later.

She crept back up to her room and tucked herself into bed, her mind full of plans.

* * *

As Kiev fell to the German Army, Alice changed the face of her small network in Vienna.

She began by rallying her 'friends': Jilí's cousin Vano, Hugo and the _S__wingjugend_, and many other people she'd met since arriving in Austria six years ago. Some Jewish and Romani, many not. Many of them were like her; people who'd seen something of the world and knew that this is not how it was meant to be. Alice didn't know if she could trust any of them.

Alice continued working within their usual network, but she overlaid a system of security and secrecy over it all. Every communication and piece of information came through a code – she taught codes from her childhood to everyone in the network, as well as some she'd learned since and some she'd picked up from Vera in France.

She developed one-time-pad ciphers to be distributed out to the crucial members of the network, a new one every week, so they could write uncrackable messages to each other. She printed the pads as small as she could and urged her friends to hide them in plain sight: Hugo and his sister stitched theirs into handkerchiefs, Vano and his roommates etched them behind the dust covers of books. Others kept the keys on tiny scraps of paper or on the underside of children's toys. Alice made sure they understood the value of secrecy. With those keys they wrote unintelligible messages to be slipped into a letterbox or left under a flowerpot, for another 'friend' to find and decrypt with their own hidden key.

Alice taught her friends how to arrange dead drops for information, food, and other materials – _no more hand-to-hand deliveries_, she urged. She taught them everything she'd learned from Vera about secrecy and disruption.

She also taught a select few how to cannibalize a radio and attach a telegraph key to it so they could send out bursts of static to unused frequencies. They didn't use morse code – too obvious to a casual listener – but used the radio sparingly to indicate drop zones and times. A single _beep _at ten o'clock meant _go to drop zone E_, two bursts at three in the afternoon meant _meet me at the café on Deckergasse. _They agreed on pre-arranged meanings to coordinate times. If Alice was preparing a food drop she'd put out a single burst of static on a certain frequency when the drop was ready. It was a simple way of coordinating people and times, and anyone idly flicking through channels would merely hear a slight shift in the crackly static of radio waves.

In reality Alice only taught around twenty to thirty people herself. Once she was sure they understood she instructed them to spread their newfound skills to their contacts, so they could learn as a system. Ciphers and drop site arrangements spread through Vienna like a whisper.

Another rule of Alice's was that no one exchanged names anymore. Alice knew more names than anyone else in the network, but she still didn't know everyone – this scared her, especially since she couldn't vet everyone, but she knew it was necessary to keep people safe.

She set down her list of rules and made sure everyone knew that breaking them meant putting themselves and everyone else at risk: _Don't tell anyone your name. Never write anything down, unless it's encrypted. Restrict your illegal contact to two people at most, if you can. Never walk directly anywhere. Destroy your one time pad as soon as you get the updated version._

Alice coordinated it all from her bedroom in her uncle's house and on her feet, walking the streets of Vienna. She left messages under bricks, slid them through unlocked windows, and dropped them in the eaves of rooftops, sometimes marking the drop with a small chalk _V_. She left brown hessian bags full of food or money in similar drops. She did it all with cold, certain precision. Now that Jilí was gone she did not have room for whispered confessions or self doubt. Only accuracy.

She saved what little warmth she had left for when she met with hungry children hidden in basements, or when her friends needed someone to hold them as they cried. Alice didn't shed a tear.

She began to know people by codenames. She knew _Scharlachrot _[_Scarlet_] worked at the post office, and helped people get letters past the censors. Scharlachrot had helped Alice redirect all the mail to Jilí's house to a post office box, and passed back information about new policies at the office. _82 _was in the catholic church, and Alice suspected he was part of a larger network, but he had useful international contacts. _82 _was reliable for hiding people. _Eichhörnchen _[_Squirrel_] had a Jewish family living in their basement. Alice was working on escape routes for them. _Gerste [Barley] _she suspected was actually a group of people; they lived just outside Salzburg, and they ran small acts of sabotage against the German army: slashing tires, pouring sugar into fuel supplies and ripping up train tracks. They chose their targets based on information that trickled through the network.

When Alice went to a performance in Salzburg there was a box full of money waiting for her from _154\. _Alice had never met _154\. _She took the money with her to the next town over for her next performance and left it for _Y8_, who was going to take it to a group of young people living underground.

It was all small acts of resistance. Alice didn't fool herself that they were in any way chipping away at Hitler's empire, but they were making a difference in people's lives: feeding them, hiding them, getting them out. And the information gathered was _going somewhere. _Alice knew that it wasn't sabotage that would bring down the Nazis - it would be information.

Of course it was still necessary for pockets of people to meet in secret to get things done. Alice met regularly with Vano (he was _Schloss _[_Castle_] to their friends), Hugo (_Strauß_ [_Ostrich_]), and some other Austrian-based 'friends', though more often than not she dressed as 'Al'. To those who didn't know her she never revealed herself as the spider at the center of the web. If they asked, she said she knew the 'man in charge'.

Her name became (though she wasn't sure who first came up with it), _Steinkauz, _a kind of small owl that sometimes haunted the eaves of the older buildings in Vienna's outskirts. Whenever Alice heard the name it reminded her of the time she'd taped up a cut on Steve's forehead and asked '_You think I'm a bird of prey?' _He'd looked up at her, his eyes wide, and swallowed. '_A little bit, yes.'_

Alice didn't mind being called _Steinkauz _at all.

Three weeks after Jilí vanished, as Hugo and Alice sat on a bench overlooking the Wien river, Hugo suggested that they should name themselves like the _Swingjugend _had.

"There's a reason the _Swingjugend_ were brought down," Alice murmured to him. "If we give ourselves a name, then _they _have a name for us. We already know that sergeant in the police force was sniffing around after the food shortages at the military canteen. He didn't find anything, thank god, but that's because there wasn't anything to find."

Hugo nodded slowly, his dark eyes on the river. "If we're nameless, we don't exist."

Alice eyed him, reflecting that though she'd met him as a boy, Hugo had become a man. He still looked much the same as always with his lanky limbs and dark curly hair, but he didn't traipse across the ground as if the world belonged to him anymore. He didn't laugh so freely. It made her cold, frozen heart ache. "If we're nameless," she murmured. "They can't find us."

* * *

For all her newfound commitment to secrecy, Alice could not stop writing to Steve and her brother. Her letters to her brother stayed as normal as ever: checking up on his schoolwork, talking to him about his friends, telling him the most sanitized version of her life that she could. On his thirteenth birthday at the start of November, she sent him a finely carved Viennese chess set since he'd mentioned he'd joined the chess club at school. Alice paid attention.

In her letters to Steve… she began to feel as if she were lying to him.

She told him nothing of what she'd been doing. She didn't even tell him that Jilí had disappeared. She had gone beyond the realm of even attempting to write anything important down, even in code. If just one censor or postman happened to see… it would put dozens of people in danger.

So Alice wrote to Steve about her performances, about how her uncle continued to frustrate her, about how she was afraid – but she didn't write specifics. In return Steve told her normal things about New York that gave her the sensation of rising through a layer of smog and dust and finally taking a breath of fresh air. Because no matter how insane her world became, there were still kids running down the streets of Brooklyn and jazz playing on the radio.

* * *

Steve knew that Alice was hiding things from him. She had been for a while, but since September something had changed. It felt like writing to a memory of an old friend who with every passing month drifted further and further away.

He understood. It was hard enough to send letters to the US at all, let alone write potentially dangerous things in them. As he worked his low-paying jobs and followed Bucky around the dance halls of Brooklyn, he wondered what Alice was doing. He wondered if she was safe. He wondered if one day a letter would never arrive, and he'd never know what happened.

Steve found himself waking up in cold sweats some nights. He'd had the same nightmare since he was small: he saw a rain-drenched trench in the mud. He moved in closer, rain in his eyes, and he'd see a man writhing there in the shadowed hole in the ground. He'd move closer and see his father, like in the portrait on the wall of the living room, but in the nightmare his father choked and scrabbled in a cloud of billowing gas until he fell still.

He still had the same nightmare, but sometimes the figure writhing in the poison gas turned into Alice: her eyes red with swollen veins and her lips a choked purple-blue. When she fell still the mud seeped across her pale blonde hair and over her wide, blank green eyes.

To escape the dreams that made his heart race dangerously Steve crept out of bed and out into the dawn light breaking over Brooklyn. He walked the streets until his breath grew slow again, wishing he was strong enough to run.

* * *

Alice stopped pushing back against her uncle when he suggested performances for Nazi generals and troops. She let him negotiate with Goebbels's propaganda department again. She also went with him to all the old parties – not with any specific plan in mind, but she'd had the old saying on her mind recently: _keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. _Alice danced with Nazi officers and laughed at their jokes, and they were flattered at how she hung onto their every word.

Alice kept in touch with Vera Izard in Paris, learning new things to pass on and passing on information and advice in her turn. She had a wide range of contacts in other countries now, at least one in every occupied Axis country. Not all of them knew exactly what Alice got up to in her free time, but all of them were useful.

She had a small net in Vienna with spidery connections to other countries, gradually expanding. Alice sent out information and supplies, and like an echo information trickled back. _M7 says the Gestapo are planning to raid Josefstadt. _Alice and some others went to Josefstadt and warned everyone they could. Hours later the Gestapo tore through the district like _druden_ on the Wild Hunt, to limited success. _An officer in the Emigration Department is offering Jews voluntary emigration west instead of deportation to the East. _Alice and the others quietly arranged for the Jews who wanted an immediate escape to find this officer. _Milan and 34 say that the Italian diplomat to Germany will be visiting Vienna in two days time._ Alice… didn't know what to do with that. She told Vera just in case her foreign connections might find it interesting.

Those from blue collar backgrounds brought back rumors about the new science installations in the Austrian mountains, and Alice sent out questions. She didn't learn much: the places were secretive, she knew that much, all anyone knew was that they were almost finished construction and were manned by soldiers in strange faceless uniforms. No one seemed to know exactly where they were, since laborers were driven up into the mountains in blacked-out trucks.

Alice quickly realized that the people like her in Austria wanted to get information to people who could _do _something with it, so inevitably it all made its way back to her, because she was the one at the root of this strange network. But Alice didn't know what to do.

She learned more and more information, some of which she could make use of in Vienna, but more which felt important _elsewhere. _She learned things of her own volition too. At parties and after performances, soldiers and generals and politicians told her things almost inadvertently. They weren't afraid of sharing with the dim, airy singer with pretty eyes. They had conversations amongst themselves that they thought no one else could hear.

She'd been eavesdropping on powerful men pretty much since she arrived in Europe, but Alice learned to _fish._

She engaged with the generals and officers who wanted the chance to speak to _Die Sirene_, chatting with them and using every conversational skill she'd learned. She got them to speak about what was bothering them or causing them stress. She smiled and nodded and furrowed her eyebrows appropriately. She was surprised at how much they were willing to tell her.

Alice heard talk of troop movements, strategies, final solutions. Each time she learned something new she felt a chill down her spine. _I don't know what to do with this information. _It was too large, too much for her chain of whispers and secretive food drops. What could they do against nations?

She was pretty sure some people in the church had outside contacts, but she couldn't trust them. So she thought of the other countries she'd been to, and their outside connections. She knew the Allies had sent spies into France and Poland. But no one would be stupid enough to send a spy into _Austria._

Alice pondered the problem as she spent her days going from glittering performance dresses to grimy clothes that concealed her true identity as she committed hundreds of small crimes. She thought of a story she'd heard about a French man who sneaked into England, spoke to General de Gaulle, and came back with resources and tricks and followed by Allied agents. She thought about the whispers she'd heard of Allied intelligence organisations set up to wreak havoc in Europe. Vera Izard had certainly hinted that she was in contact with some of those organisations.

By October Alice realized her network of friends would have to truly cross borders. So she spread her wings.

Alice began to travel again. Only this time, instead of sneaking out at night to wander the streets aimlessly, she had purpose. In France she met with Vera again.

Vera's eyes widened as Alice spoke to her, her voice a low murmur as they both sat in the darkened sitting room they'd first met in.

"You've been busier than you let on," Vera eventually said.

Alice merely shrugged. "I'm trusting you with this information, Vera, because I don't know what to do with it." She met Vera's almost violet dark eyes. "Do you?"

She knew the resistance in France was changing – it had even started to seep into the German news. They were training, acting: every now and then Alice would hear about an assassinated informer or official, or a sabotaged train. She had no way of knowing if Vera and the OCM had anything to do with that but she was willing to bet they were part of it.

Vera took a drag of her cigarette and eyed Alice with an assessing look. "Yes," she eventually said. "Yes, I do."

Alice began to funnel information out of Austria. Whenever she or someone she trusted went travelling they'd bring their information with them, and sometimes she entrusted it to letters. She didn't just go through France; she performed in neutral Switzerland, Axis Italy, occupied Poland. Wherever she went she talked to the important people as the Siren. But then she sneaked out in disguise and found the _other _important people. At first, it had been about curiosity: a sick hope that she wasn't alone. But it had become more than that.

As the game of trust and suspicion played out, her new contacts were rightly suspicious of the slight young man telling them information he had no right to know. But when they found out the value of her words (in Poland she warned them of a new general who intended to arrive in Warsaw next week, to crack down on resistance in the ghetto), they began to trust the _Steinkauz. _Alice learned from them in turn: how to hide, how to fight back.

Each time she returned to Vienna she found that the network had grown just that little bit stronger, had learned to grow without her. It scared her sometimes. But she supposed every parent was surprised by their child's growth.

* * *

Excerpt from German Propaganda Department memorandum '_Progress Report - Vienna_', October 20 1941 [translated]

_Excitement for the progress of the war is at an all-time high thanks to our efforts, though the Gestapo have reported incidences of vandalism, theft, and fugitives disappearing, likely abetted by accomplices. There are many criminals at large. The glorious Reich has enemies even in the heart of Vienna, it seems. But public expressions against the Reich have declined. _ _Sergeant Wilhelm believes that there is little resistance to worry about, and our propaganda will turn any loyal Austrian against traitors._

_If our budget is increased in the next month, we expect to be able to inspire further love and fervor for victory in the hearts of Austrians through film, advertisements, and music..._

_..._

_...additionally, HYDRA failed to communicate with our Department before undertaking activities in the country, for which reason we will be filing a formal complaint..._

* * *

Around November, Alice realized that this wasn't enough. She was helping people and funneling information and people out of the country, learning more and more as she ingratiated herself with the people her uncle loved to seek out, but she still had no idea where her information was going. She trusted Vera, more or less, but her contacts in other countries were murkier.

Alice was _good _at finding information. But all she had was a one-way line with who-knew-what at the end of it. Alice didn't know what those faceless generals across the sea _needed_. She needed to do something more.

When she wrote to Vera about it, using not a one-time-pad but a code they'd set up so it only appeared they were talking about a mutual sick friend, Vera's reply was short.

_I'll think about it._

Alice, frustrated with Vera's obfuscation and reticence, enjoyed burning that letter.

On the first Sunday of December, Alice sat massaging her feet by the fire at her uncle's house after a long day of chasing down a rumor about a young Jewish boy living on the streets in an effort to avoid the Gestapo. She'd found the boy stealing scraps from the bins out the back of the Schönbrunn zoo after hours of searching as 'Al'. The boy had cheeks so gaunt he looked like a ghost, and a filthy yellow star on his coat. He hadn't trusted her, but she'd managed to find her friend Liesl, whose father had been a rabbi when he was still alive, who convinced the boy to come home with her. Tomorrow Alice intended to set about getting the boy papers.

She glanced out the window at the darkening sky. She was glad the boy was inside.

With a crackle, the crooning operetta on the radio cut out. Alice glanced up with a frown. The radio tubes had been replaced a week ago, perhaps the technician had misaligned something? But then the staticky silence was replaced by a crisp voice:

"_Apologies for the interruption to our regular programming," _said the German newsreader, "_Word has just come in that the Empire of Japan has carried out a surprise disabling attack against the United States Pacific Fleet in Hawaii._"

Alice's foot dropped to the floor with a _clunk._

"…_in two waves, hundreds of Japanese aircraft bombed and torpedoed the American fleet at 7:48AM GST. Early reports indicate that four U.S. battleships have been sunk as well as many other naval craft, and casualties are in the hundreds…_"

Alice didn't realize that her mouth had fallen open until a new voice spoke behind her:

"This is _wonderful_."

Her mouth snapped shut and she glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. It was her uncle, of course; he stood in his pajamas and dressing gown with a cigarette in his mouth and a gleam in his eyes. He came over and set a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't you see, Alice? Our allies have crippled the Americans in one stroke and may finally coax the cowards into an honest fight. They've been feigning neutrality so long." He took a long drag from his cigarette and curled his fingers away from Alice. She shifted in her seat. "This is the birth of the true German Reich_. Finally_."

Alice's shoulder burned where he'd touched her. Her head swiveled numbly back to the radio.

"_… __Japanese diplomats are yet to deliver a formal declaration of war to the United States, though it is certain this will cause the entry of that country into the glorious war-_"

Alice stood up abruptly and strode out of the room.

"Where are you going?" her uncle called with a bite in his voice. "I'm calling for our friends, let's celebrate!"

She ignored him.

As soon as her bedroom door shut behind her, Alice sat down at her dresser table, tore a few sheets of paper from her drawer and began to write.

* * *

Excerpt from '_Pearl Harbor and the American Plunge into World War II_' by Harry Toach (1998), p44

_The attack on Pearl Harbor took the German commanders by surprise, as it did the rest of the world. But four days after Pearl Harbor and the outbreak of hostilities between the US and Japan, Germany declared war on the Americans. This wasn't necessary, as through their alliance with Japan they were already technically at war, but Hitler had actually been eager to begin making war on the United States. This may seem strange given the American military force and the fact that Germany was already viciously battling on the Eastern Front, but America had been in Hitler's sights since before the war broke out - since, some might argue, since the very end of World War I._

_Hitler was eager to declare war on the Americans before they declared war on Germany, as one of his ministers explained: "A great power does not allow itself to be declared war upon; it declares war on others."_

_Whatever Hitler's reasons, the formal German declaration against the United States was a great relief to the British Prime Minister Churchill, who had been concerned that America would turn its forces only toward the Pacific, and not to Europe. But war had been declared, and so the Americans would come to Europe. Consequently, the entire face of the war changed in a day._

* * *

Three weeks later, Steve hurried up the stairs to his apartment, fumbled his keys until he opened the door, and fell inside in a tangle of coat, scarf, and bag. He shrugged out of all of it and went straight to his table where the letter opener rested. His cheeks were burning from the cold outside and his fingers clutched a thick envelope with a Lisbon return address.

He'd just slit open the newly arrived envelope when he heard a thudding knock at the door.

Alice's letter slid out onto the table. Another knock.

Steve glanced from what he could see of Alice's flowing handwriting, to the door, and back again. With a sigh he turned away and went to the door.

He yanked it open to Bucky's flustered face and mussed hair.

"Buck," he said in surprise, "I thought you were already gone."

"My train's in an hour, pal, don't be so keen to get rid of me." Bucky brushed his hair back into place. "Did you get a letter from Alice?"

Steve blinked. "Yeah, just got home and found it in the mail. I'm reading it now."

Bucky slid his hand into his pocket, retrieved a folded piece of paper and waved it at him. "Well if yours is anything like mine…" he blew out a breath. "She's not messing around."

Steve's eyebrows rose and without another word he waved Bucky in. Bucky traipsed in after him, cocking an eyebrow at the pile of coat-scarf-bag in the entryway, then flung himself into a chair at the table.

"Hurry up and read," he urged.

"I'm reading, I'm reading." Steve swiped up Alice's letter.

_December 7, 1941  
Vienna  
Dear Steve,_

_Just heard the news about the attack on Hawaii. It's early hours yet but no one's pretending that the US won't enter the war now. And if they go to war against Japan, they go to war against Germany._

_I know you're going to try to enlist._

_I don't know how quickly things are moving, but before you go anywhere I want to make sure you understand some things if you get sent to Europe. Some of it will apply if you get a Pacific posting._

_Keep your head down. _ _Literally and metaphorically. If you're captured, don't fight them or mouth off. They won't hesitate to kill you. Train your hardest so you have the skills you need once you get here. Be near a gas mask, always. Geneva might have banned chemical weapons but the rules mean nothing here._

_The German Army doesn't rely entirely on carefully planning out an attack beforehand – they adjust, adapt, and are therefore ready for anything. You need to be ready for anything too. Don't underestimate them._

_If you get stranded without your company, take off your uniform. They don't think twice about shooting at uniforms, and I've heard too many soldiers brag about picking off lost soldiers._

_I'm sure you've heard of the term 'blitzkrieg' by now. It means 'lightning war'. They'll come at you with everything they have – infantry, tanks, Luftwaffe – in a lightning-fast blow that drives you back so fast it'll send you reeling. Be ready for this. As far as I can see, the best defense is to _ _not be_ _ where they think you are._

_They're investing in science and technology for this war. Don't assume you know what kind of weapons you'll be facing, because it might be nothing the world has ever seen before._

_The Germans fight a battle of annihilation, which means they seek victory by totally eliminating the opposing army. That means you. Don't expect mercy._

_Keep your equipment clean and functional. Take care of that before you eat, even. It'll keep you alive longer than food will._

_Never trust the locals completely, wherever you are. There are local informants in every country and they won't hesitate to sell you out for a loaf of bread or a bit of safety for their family._

_Learn German. _ _If you don't remember what you learned from me, pick up a phrasebook. Learning how to say 'don't shoot' may save your life._

_(nicht schießen)_

_If you end up on the front, wherever they send you… tell everyone you can to get out. I mean the people who live there. Staying where they are is not sustainable, especially if they're Jewish. Tell them to get as far as they can._

_I'm writing all this in a panic in my room, I'm sure there's lots more advice I could give you but for the life of me this is all I can think of right now. I…_

_I wish this was a letter convincing you __not_ _to enlist. I wish I could do that. When we were growing up I wanted nothing more than for you to become a soldier like your dad. I wished I could be one too, most days. But I've grown up, Steve, and I've seen what war is like. I don't want you anywhere near this._

_And at the same time, I know this is a war that must be fought. I think I'm relieved that the US will be joining. What does that make me? I'm relieved that soldiers from America are going to come here to fight the Nazis, and inevitably die for the cause. Because it means we might have a chance. But then I see your face and Bucky's in those uniforms. I see Finn Neri's face, and our teachers from school, and maybe even Tom's if this war stretches on much longer._

_I shouldn't be writing any of this down._

_I have to go. Please, Steve, stay safe. Stay _ _smart_ _. For me._

_Yours,  
Alice._

Steve let out a long breath as he finished the letter and put it back on the table. He sank into the seat across from Bucky.

The moment Alice had heard about Pearl Harbor, her first thought had been of him. Steve's first thought had been of her. He'd been at an art class at Times Square with Bucky, and the news had rippled through the room like an earthquake. The teacher had said _we're going to war, then_, and Steve had pictured faceless GIs marching into Vienna. His stomach twisted.

"From the look on your face," Bucky said, "I assume your letter was pretty much like mine. I suppose... I guess it's better to know than not?"

Steve looked up at his friend's face and saw the worry there. "What're you gonna write back?"

Bucky shrugged. "I guess I'll tell her I enlisted."

Bucky and Steve had gone to the same enlistment center. Bucky had been given a pat on the shoulder and the details of his training, including a train ticket. The train he was due to get on in… fifty minutes now.

Steve had gotten a pitying look and a red stamped _4F _on his form.

Steve ran a finger over Alice's words. _I wanted nothing more than for you to become a soldier like your dad._ His jaw tightened and he pushed down the twist of jealousy he felt toward Bucky. _Guess you don't have to worry, Alice._

He took a deep breath and looked up at Bucky again, who was off in his thoughts.

"And," Bucky continued, "I'm gonna tell her I'll take her advice." He ran a hand through his hair. "Seems like she knows what she's talking about."

"It sure does," Steve murmured. He had an unsettled, disturbed feeling in his stomach. _Tell everyone you can to get out. Tell them to get as far as they can._ She'd been keeping things from him.

Steve shook himself and set down the letter. "C'mon, private," he said in a lighter tone. "Let's go get your stuff, and I'll walk 'ya to the train station. Gotta see you leave Brooklyn myself or I won't believe it."

"Place won't be the same without me," Bucky said with a dramatic sigh as he stood up.

"It won't," Steve agreed. "Peace and quiet, at last."

They tumbled out the front door with Steve's head locked under Bucky's arm, tussling back and forth until Steve's elderly neighbor stuck her head out the door and snapped "Cut it out, boys, you're old enough to know better!"

They meekly ducked their heads and made their way downstairs.

* * *

Alice and her uncle did not get along. They never had. But over the six years that she had been living with him, Alice had gotten to know him very well. So she knew that if she dropped precisely _two _hints that she was concerned about travelling abroad because of resistance activity, and left his newspaper open one morning to an article about the assassination of a Nazi collaborator in Poland, that he would invite one of his officer friends in the SS over for tea.

When the morning of the visit came, Alice sat in her housedress in the sitting room with her uncle and the SS-_Oberführer_ [_Senior Leader_] for Vienna, her fingers gentle on her teacup and her expression bored. For a few minutes the men talked about things that Alice genuinely didn't care about: sport, the likelihood of a good fishing season this coming spring. They laughed together about how their bodies seemed to be falling apart now they'd hit fifty.

_Finally_ though, Alice's uncle leaned back and said "Friedrich… I am a little concerned about how safe it is to travel these days."

The chestnut-haired SS officer cocked his head. "What do you mean? You're worried about the Allied planes?"

"Not so much, I mean the resistance in countries like France and Poland. It seems as the war progresses they are only getting more dangerous." Her uncle leaned back and stroked his jaw. "We travel often, you know."

Friedrich waved a hand. "You needn't worry about them anymore, we're taking stricter measures."

"Such as?" asked her uncle with a frown. Alice almost felt _grateful _to him for anticipating the questions she most wanted to ask.

Friedrich leaned forward. "It's called the Night and Fog decree – no more wasting time and lives on drawn out trials and hostage-taking to quash the terrorist groups. We can imprison them without the mess of judicial proceedings." He gave her uncle a reassuring smile. "As of this month, anyone who endangers German security will just" – he snapped a finger – "disappear."

Alice's uncle let out a heavy sigh. "Well. That is a relief." He looked over. "You hear that, Alice? We'll be safe to travel after all."

Alice had been carefully perusing a magazine on the coffee table, but when her uncle called her name she looked up with an absent smile. "Oh? That's excellent news." She turned back to the magazine as the two men began discussing the new rationing in Venice. Neither of them noticed her fingers shake as she reached out to turn the page.

Alice did not tell the news to everyone she saw, as she longed to do, but let the information slip out into the network like an oil slick spreading over water.

_Arrest is no longer on the line_. _Anyone involved in any form of resistance – smuggling, deceit, fugitive activities – will be killed. No trial or jury. You will disappear into the night and the fog. If you want to get out now, get out. No one will judge you._

Alice lost a dispatcher or two, but it seemed most people knew the consequences already. For herself, Alice allowed herself a moment of fear: she had no illusions that her status would give her safety if the SS found out what she'd been up to. She wondered how she'd feel if the chains closed over her wrists. She wondered what she would think if she found herself on one of those crowded, fear-soaked trains bound east.

_It'd be worth it._

Alice shook off her fear for herself and got back to work. Hugo's sister Marie was visiting Paris midway through the month, so Alice instructed her to pass on the information about the Night and Fog decree to Vera, as she suspected the decree was specifically directed at the French resistance.

Four days before Christmas, the German newspapers crowed over a victory: Jacques Arthuys, a Great War veteran, had been arrested in Paris on suspicion of being a resistance organizer. Alice saw the headline and set it down with a sour taste in her mouth, but thought nothing more of it until Marie returned from Paris with wide eyes and a hushed tone to her voice.

"Arthuys was the head of the OCM," she told Alice as the two of them met in the back of a darkened cinema. Alice stiffened in her seat but didn't face Marie directly. "The Gestapo had their eye on him for a while but they finally snapped him up. You were right, Alice – he's not going to have a trial. No one's heard of him since he was arrested."

Alice watched the black-and-white drama on screen unfold. "And the OCM?" she murmured.

"They have a new leader already. I heard he used to be a Colonel in the army."

"Don't tell me anything else about him," Alice warned. Though she was glad to hear it; with army connections, the new OCM head likely had connections with the Free French in Britain. "Are we safe? What did Arthuys know about us?" She was sure he was a very trustworthy man, but she trusted no man under torture.

Marie shook her head. "Vera said he was hiding in the provinces when she met you, and she never told him anything specific when he came back. She says we're fine." Marie glanced sideways. "She did say she wanted to talk to you again, though. Gave me this for you-" Marie leaned forward and with a mutter of discomfort pulled a small letter out from where she'd tucked it down the back of her skirt.

Alice took the letter with a wry look and cast a quick glance over it. In code – she'd expected no less. "Thank you." She leaned back in her seat and propped her chin in her hand. "I s'pose we'd better see the rest of this movie, then."

Marie laughed in the darkness. "It's not very good."

It was some propaganda flick about a Germanic hero on the front. Right now he was valiantly fighting a cowering US Army GI. "No," Alice sighed. "No, it isn't."

* * *

Excerpt from '_Night and Fog Decree_', the Holocaust Encyclopedia

_The "Night and Fog" decree was directed against persons in occupied territories engaging in activities intended to undermine the security of German troops. They were, upon capture, to be brought to Germany "by night and fog" for trial by special courts. This circumvented military procedure and various conventions governing the treatment of prisoners._

_..._

_After capture, interrogation, and, frequently, torture, Night and Fog prisoners might face special courts (Sondergerichte) which handed down death and prison sentences. After acquittal or the termination of the sentence, German authorities often transferred these prisoners directly to concentration camps, typically to Gross-Rosen and Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camps. Once registered in the concentration camp, "Nacht und Nebel" ("Night and Fog") prisoners wore uniform jackets marked with the acronym "N.N." to explicitly identify their status. The death rate among "N.N" prisoners was very high._

* * *

Christmas Day, 1941

Alice used to be the first to wake up on Christmas mornings when she'd lived in Brooklyn. She liked to creep through the house to the small pile of presents that had appeared in front of the rickety old heater overnight, and shake her own present to figure out what it was before anyone else woke up.

She'd lost her excitement for the day after coming to Austria.

So she didn't wake up of her own accord in the silence before the sun peeked over the horizon. Instead, she woke up to the shrill terror of Julia's scream.

Alice's eyes snapped open as the maid's scream curdled into silence, followed by thundering footsteps. She looked up at the canopy of her bed and thought: _they've found me._

She closed her eyes, fighting back a bitter well of tears. _If I'd only had more time_, she thought, _I could have escaped. Fled out of Austria just like I've helped others do._ Her fists clenched in the sheets. She wished she could apologize to Steve, Bucky, and her brother somehow.

But when her door burst open it wasn't a heavy-booted SS soldier. Only Julia, her stricken face glistening with tears. Her chest heaved.

Alice slowly sat up.

"_Frä__u__lein_," Julia breathed. Her brows furrowed as she looked at Alice's sleep-mussed face.

"What is it, Julia?" Alice climbed out of bed and padded over to her distraught maid. She set a hand on her shoulder.

"_Frä__u__lein,_ I'm so… so sorry." She shook her head and began weeping again. Alice frowned. "Your uncle… he's… _passed on_."

Alice's hand on Julia's shoulder went rigid.

Julia put her face in her hands and began to weep in earnest. "_I'm so sorry_," she kept crying between gasps. After a few moments Alice blinked, and looked out the open door to see the house manservant on the telephone.

"_Need a doctor_," she saw him mouth, "_… __death overnight_… _the body's cold._"

Alice blinked once more, and suddenly there were tears rolling down her cheeks. Julia had taken that moment to peek between her hands, and at the sight she looped her arms around her mistress and pulled her into a hug. Alice let herself cry, and be held.

But it wasn't grief that she felt.

* * *

_**~ Death visits ~** _

* * *

Alice barely had a moment to think the rest of the day and the next, too busy with morgue forms and funeral arrangements and visitors offering their condolences.

"_The poor dear_," she heard an acquaintance of her uncle's at the production company whisper to her husband as they left the house. "_She's in shock._"

Alice sat down with her uncle's lawyers and stared numbly at financial documents. She'd become independently wealthy of her uncle since becoming the Siren, but surprise stirred in her chest when she saw that he'd left pretty much everything to her: the house, his cars, his money. She supposed he didn't have anyone else.

Alice didn't sleep that night. Some housewives in the area had taken it upon themselves to cook her Christmas dinner and stayed with her long into the evening, plying her with cups of tea and wine. Alice cried some more, because it felt rude not to, and the women fussed and dabbed at her eyes with handkerchiefs. When they finally left Alice didn't return to her cold, unmade bed. She paced the empty rooms of her uncle's house and peered out the dark windows into the night. She finally came to settle in the armchair by the fire in the dining room, her uncle's chair. She sat in the middle of all his gathered splendor with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes dry, waiting for the sun to rise.

The next day the bustle of arrangements continued. Mid-afternoon, once the funeral director had left, leaving Alice blessedly alone, she let out a sigh and went to turn on the radio for a moment, rubbing her scratchy eyes.

With a furtive glance around, even though she knew all the servants were out for the day, Alice tuned in to one of the long-range British channels she knew of. She couldn't stomach the harsh German propaganda today. She wanted the comforting sounds of _English._

When the crackly static resolved itself into the smooth voice of a British radio presenter Alice closed her eyes and smiled, even before she understood the words.

"_… __seems the leaders of the two nations spent Christmas together reviewing strategy for the war, and earlier this afternoon Churchill gave a rousing address to Congress._"

"What?" Alice said in the emptiness of the house. She turned up the radio volume.

"_Just after noon in the U.S. Capitol, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill attended the joint Congress gathering, after almost a week spent in the country coordinating military strategy. We will now play his address in whole._"

Alice gripped the mantelpiece of the fireplace with wide eyes. A moment later, her eyes widened further when the distinctive crisp voice of none other than Winston Churchill spoke into her uncle's – _her – _living room. For the first half of the speech Alice listened dumbly, trying to understand why she felt so _overwhelmed _at the idea of the British Prime Minister speaking in the nation's capital. Churchill spoke of his gratitude to the U.S., his love of democracy, his admiration of the American spirit, his thoughts on the war.

"_For the best part of twenty years,_" Churchill said as Alice clutched her mantelpiece, "_the youth of Britain and America have been taught that war was evil, which is true, and that it would never come again, which has been proved false. For the best part of twenty years the youth of Germany, of Japan and Italy, have been taught that aggressive war is the noblest duty of the citizen and that it should be begun as soon as the necessary weapons and organizations have been made._"

Alice clenched her jaw and listened to the British Prime Minister lay out the facts of the war and the offensives they had undertaken in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. Hearing it laid out on such a global scale made her heart pound.

"_The United States, united as never before, has drawn the sword for freedom and cast away the scabbard. All these tremendous facts have led the subjugated peoples of Europe to lift up their heads again in hope. They have put aside forever the shameful temptation of resigning themselves to the conqueror's will. Hope has returned to the hearts of scores of millions of men and women, and with that hope there burns the flame of anger against the brutal, corrupt invader._"

Alice's scalp tingled almost painfully, a thrill that shot down her spine and made her body prickle like she'd been electrified. Her heartbeat roared in her ears.

"_If you will allow me to use other language_," Churchill said in the tone of a man coming to the end of his point, "_I will say that he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to be faithful servants. It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and American peoples will, for their own safety and for the good of all, walk together in majesty, in justice and in peace._"

Tinny, uproarious applause flooded into Alice's living room, and she turned off the radio with a shiver. Her whole body was shaking, as if she'd been the one speaking to Congress instead of Churchill.

She'd heard words like his since the war began a year ago. But something about hearing those words, _today_, straight from the U.S., had sparked something deep in her chest. Up until now the war had just been what she saw of it. But Churchill's words had made it clear that there was a whole _world _bleeding from this.

And she was right here, arranging her uncle's funeral, not doing anything to stop it.

A knock echoed into the living room from the front door. Alice sniffed, wiped her eyes even though they were dry, and after a moment to take a deep breath she went to let in the latest flood of commiserating guests.

Throughout all of it, in the back of her mind she pondered the letter Marie had brought her back from Vera. She'd decoded it right away and then burned it, but was yet to compose a reply. When she lay awake at night, staring at the underside of her bed's canopy, she recalled what Vera had written and her heart pounded.

* * *

They buried her uncle on New Years Day. The church was packed despite the holiday season, with officials from every branch of government, the top strata of the Austrian and German music industry, social elites, and a smattering of distant family members. Alice sat alone on the front row and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief as each speaker spoke of her uncle's dedication to music, his support of the national cause, his passion and moral steadfastness.

When they walked outside to the pre-dug hole in the ground, Alice was reminded of her mother's funeral. It had been a wintry, snowy day like this one. There hadn't been so many people at her mom's funeral.

Alice stood and watched as the men lowered her uncle's coffin into the hole in the ground. She stepped forward, took a spade, and cast down the first shower of cold dirt, then stepped back to let everyone else finish the job. She stood by and watched as the dirt gradually swallowed him up.

His gravestone read: _Josef Huber. Beloved pioneer._ Alice stared at the words so hard that her eyes burned and teared up.

She kept staring, standing silently in her long dark coat, until one by one everyone who'd come to the funeral walked back to the church. It was too cold outside to pay respects for too long. Even the priest wandered back inside after a sad smile to Alice.

Alone with the grave, Alice let out a breath of vapor and watched it rise into the crisp, clear air and vanish. She looked back down at her uncle's headstone.

"It was this," she said to the empty air, "Or I would have killed you, uncle."

The words felt as sharp as a knife. Alice lifted her chin. "I would have." She stared at the ground, wishing she could look into her uncle's indifferent dark eyes. "Not because you despised my mother, or because you tore me away from my only remaining family in the world, or because you made my life here a living nightmare. Not even because you're a coward willing to step on the weak to make yourself strong."

She took in a deep breath that seared her lungs. "I'd have killed you because you were getting in my way."

With that, she turned and walked back toward the church. She knew she'd never return.

* * *

Alice returned home to hear that nearly thirty Allied nations had signed an alliance called the _Declaration of the United Nations. _Alice felt a thrill down the back of her neck at the news – there was a united front now.

Alice finally knew how to respond to Vera's letter.

Her first move as an heiress was to fire her uncle's household servants. She felt guilty for putting them out of work, but she couldn't have them watching her any longer. Julia didn't seem all that surprised, and even offered Alice a parting hug. Alice wondered what Julia would do if she knew what Alice had been up to all these years. They'd never liked each other, but Julia had always looked at Alice with… not quite fear, or respect, but something bordering on both.

Alice's second move as an heiress was to reinforce her uncle's connections in the music industry and the government. There was once a time when she couldn't wait to be rid of them all, but now she invited them for tea and commiserated with them over the loss of her uncle, drawing them closer.

Instead of listening to and passing on rumors, Alice put out a rumor of her own: she was deep in grief over her uncle's sudden death. His loss had shaken her to her core. She was considering taking a hiatus from society to heal. Her contacts in the music industry weren't happy, neither was Goebbels's propaganda department, but everyone seemed to understand.

At the same time Alice put out feelers in her network. Not for specific information, but to check that it _worked_. To see how much it had grown. She spent two days with Hugo, giving him instructions and warnings. At the end of the two days she was certain that the network had grown strong enough to survive without her, at least for a time. It was a strange feeling: for months she'd felt like she'd been carrying this strange, secret responsibility on her back like a tortoise shell – a burden and a shield. But it carried itself now. Others ran food drops, passed information to contacts in attics and on trains to France and Poland, fed false rumors to police. Hugo started putting out codes of his own.

One morning before the sun had risen over the stretching buildings of Vienna, Alice walked out of her uncle's house with a trunk in her hand and a heavy coat on her shoulders. She started up the only car of her uncle's she hadn't sold and drove out of the city. In Linz she parked the car at a friend's house and got on a train bound west.

She left behind her friends and the people under her protection. It made her heart stutter, but she knew they would be able to continue on without her, at least for a short while.

Vera looked surprised when Alice appeared at her doorway in Paris that afternoon, though the surprise only lasted for a moment. They sat down together for three hours, discussing plans and paperwork and contacts.

"Are you sure about this?" Vera asked when she stood up to leave.

Alice met her eyes and nodded. "I'm sure. We need this."

Vera ran a hand through her thick dark hair and sighed. "I don't disagree with you. But this will put you in much more danger, Moser. I hope you realize that."

Alice laced her fingers together. "Even if this ends up with the Germans spreading across the globe, and with me in some camp in the east starving to death…" her hard eyes flickered for a moment, and Vera sighed. "I'd want to know, even then, that I did everything I could. Because if I didn't, then I'm no better than the people who put up a Nazi flag out the front of their house and salute when the Führer marches past."

Vera bowed her head. "I'll gladly join you in that camp then, Moser." She looked up with steely eyes. "Get yourself ready. You'll have to leave soon."

* * *

The next night at midnight, Alice sat on the back of a tiny wooden rowing boat as two rough-jawed men rowed it out to sea across the dark water. Her travel trunk was tucked under her legs. Alice could just see the beach of the unnamed French coastal town she'd left behind as Vera, alone on the moonlit sand, raised a hand.

Freezing wind blew off the dark water and made Alice shiver. Vera was swallowed up by the night.

Ten minutes later the rowing boat _thunked _against the side of a larger ferry. Pale faces glanced down at Alice as she shakily climbed the rope ladder on the side.

"Welcome aboard, young man," said a man whose cap and body language identified him as the captain. He spoke English with a Scottish accent.

Alice tipped her own cap, careful not to dislodge her hair. "I appreciate you having me." She was careful to add a low French lilt to her accent.

"Your bunk's below deck, settle in and we'll be off in no time. Got to get out of these waters, we know where the mines are but it ain't safe to hang around."

Alice inclined her head, but didn't head below deck. As the sailors quietly hoisted up the rowboat and set the engine to its lowest setting to set away from the French coast, she walked to the front of the ship.

The ship pressed west, away from the battle-torn shores of Europe and away from everything Alice had known for the last six years. Her trunk felt heavy in her hands.

She looked out into the waiting darkness and felt the wind whisper against her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The info about Churchill's congress address comes from the United States Senate website and the National Churchill Museum. The Holocaust Encyclopedia excerpt is a real one from their website.


	26. Chapter Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one called this, so I am now ready to receive your screams.

Excerpt from article '_Music in Wartime__: stories from ten remarkable lives_,' by Holly Blackwood, 1989

_The Siren dropped out of public life following her uncle's death at the end of 1941. There is a sharp drop in reports about her in the Austrian and German papers, save for discussions of her pre-existing music and in memorials for Josef Huber._

_At the time, and in consequent analyses of her life, some theorized a descent into substance abuse (reports vary between alcohol and opiates) that led to her being institutionalized at a medical center in the Austrian or French countryside. One reporter claimed, in full confidence, to have seen the Siren singing at a tavern of low repute outside Linz._

_The general consensus at the time seems to have been that the singer had become a recluse. This wasn't uncommon mid-war, with many artists disappearing from the public eye due to a myriad of circumstances. The Siren would have been just another casualty in an unfortunate series of musical talent fading away._

_Many likely expected her to never return._

* * *

January, 1942

The pier at the New York Passenger Terminal smelled just the way Alice remembered it: sea salt, engine fumes, and rotting garbage. The smell made her smile.

She remembered visiting this place while it was under construction, when Bucky had been working labor. A couple of times she and Steve had caught the train out here with a packed box of food for Bucky, and the three of them had sat on the seawall overlooking the harbor, admiring the reflection of New York City in the Hudson and wrinkling their noses at the wafting smells from the water.

Seven years later, Alice stood alone at the pier and stared up at the glinting towers of Manhattan. She turned slowly, her trunk in her hands, until she spied the Brooklyn Bridge reaching over the East River. Brooklyn was a dim and distant haze across the water, with the bustling Navy Yard a hazy flurry of activity.

Alice took in a deep breath. This wasn't how she'd imagined coming back. She'd dreamed this moment so many times: she'd step off the passenger ship and look up to see three beaming figures before her: Tom, Bucky, and Steve.

She looked down the pier but it was already emptying out, her fellow passengers keen to get into the city and away from the docks. No one waited for Alice.

"There a problem, miss?"

Alice glanced over her shoulder to see one of the dock workers looking over at her as he coiled a thick slimy rope around a bollard. His brow quirked.

"No," Alice said in a New York accent. She hoisted her trunk and shot the man a thin smile. "Everything's fine."

She lifted her chin and strode down the pier and into New York City.

It turned out that Vera had agreed with Alice when she said she needed to do more than just funnel information down a murky one-way line. Vera had been reaching out to contacts for a few months, unknown to Alice, and just before Christmas had received a message in reply.

One of the OCM's contacts across the ocean had responded with some interest on behalf of an organization called the '_SSR'._ Alice didn't know anything about the organization beyond their acronym, and that they had offered (through Vera) to meet with Alice (who'd only been referred to as 'an interested party from Austria') to discuss 'cooperation'. Alice had packed up her things and gotten on board an illicit ferry across the Atlantic on the basis of these vague communications, banking everything on a hope.

She could have gone to the British; she knew of the British Special Operations Executive, who had sent agents into France, but there was something in her that called to the mysterious offer from New York. If only to see the city once more.

No one aside from Vera and the mystery organization in New York knew where Alice had gone. No one back in Austria knew anything apart from the fact that she was 'taking personal time to grieve', and all Hugo knew was that she was chasing down an idea and that she'd return soon. All her network knew was that the _Steinkauz_ had gone silent.

Alice hadn't written to Steve, Bucky, or her brother about her plans. As far as they knew she was still in Vienna. It was far too dangerous to put her plans to paper, even through the Lisbon line. On the ship over she'd agonized about what to do. It seemed cruel to reappear in their lives, only to leave for the war again who knew how soon. She wouldn't be able to tell them anything.

Standing on the deck of the ship as she watched the tossing waves, Alice had told herself that her brother and the boys need never know that she was in New York. _This is business_, she told herself. _You'll only put them in danger if they know you're in town._

As Alice stood on the side of a busy Hells Kitchen street with her hand out, she took another deep breath of New York air and felt alarmed when tears pricked at the corner of her eyes. It wasn't just that she was back in New York after half believing that she would never return – for the first time in years, no one knew who she was. No one knew _where_ she was. She could do whatever she liked and it wouldn't put her or anyone else at risk of death. It felt like stepping out from underneath a heavy weight that teetered precariously, threatening to fall and crush her at any moment. It felt like stepping into sunlight.

A taxi screeched over to the side of the road and she climbed in.

"Where to, sweetheart?" called the brisk-voiced driver.

"Brooklyn," Alice murmured as she tried to fight back her tears (and her annoyance at being called _sweetheart_).

"_Where _in Brooklyn?"

She wanted so badly to give him her old address. Matthias's family still ran the tailor shop, but the apartment over it had been rented out years ago. She shook away the thought. "A hotel. Any hotel."

"You got it." The driver stomped on the gas pedal and Alice leaned back against the headrest as she was whisked toward Brooklyn.

* * *

The ship had made good time across the Atlantic, and Alice's scheduled meet with Vera's contact wasn't for another two days. She booked a hotel room, unpacked her things (a few outfits, the letters and records she'd dug out of the back garden of her uncle's house, and money), and then sat down on the edge of her bed.

Her hotel was mid-range, nicer than anywhere she'd lived before Austria, with a paisley green bedspread, dark wooden furniture, electric heating and a view over the street below. They'd even had a bellhop to help her carry her trunk upstairs. Alice slowly got to her feet and looked out the window.

Brooklyn hadn't changed. Cars rumbled up and down the street, dodging the rattly Brownsville trolley, and on the sidewalks thronged the people: young women with smart skirts and hats, groups of kids skidding around street corners, harried families, elderly women coughing into their handkerchiefs. The early January chill hadn't put these people off from going about their business. The only difference was the number of men and women in uniform - mostly navy, thanks to the nearby ship yard. Seeing English on the signs and advertisements up and down the street did something funny to Alice's heart.

She pressed her palm against the cold glass. It rattled under her hand when the trolley rolled past. She could just hear the muffled sounds from outside: engines purring, children laughing.

_What to do for two days?_

Alice turned away from the glass and eyed the inside of her hotel room. There was nothing here for her but old letters from Steve, Bucky, and Tom, and her heart wasn't strong enough to reread those right now.

Alice ran her hands through her hair. The concept of _spare time_ was unnatural to her. If this were Vienna she'd be heading out to be useful, or making a new cipher, or calling up contacts for information or to invite them to a party. She always had _something _going on. But now all she had left to do was to wait until her scheduled meeting time with the SSR contact in two days.

She looked over her shoulder out the window and caught a glimpse of five children chasing each other down the sidewalk before darting into an alley. Alice knew exactly where that alley led. She knew it had once had a large trashcan halfway down that the electronics store tossed their unsaleable parts into.

Alice blew out a breath. _Can't stay in here._

* * *

Advertisement for Museum of the City of New York exhibit '_Life in Wartime_', 2005

_This Sunday, the museum is unveiling its latest exhibit, a photographic tour through New York City in World War II. Journey from the pre-Pearl Harbor days of relative peace, to the sudden explosion of industry and mobilization following the United States' entry into the war. World War II dramatically changed the way people lived in New York: those going about their daily lives received updates about the war in Europe over the radio and in the newspaper every day, survived through mandated food rationing, and participated in the growing civilian war effort._

_New York become one of the major navy hubs of the war, with a ship leaving New York Harbor every 15 minutes (the busiest that port has been throughout its long history), and the Brooklyn Navy Yard doubling in size and employing over 70,000 people, many of them civilian or military women (WAVES). People and materials flowed through the city._

_See photographs and artworks depicting this momentous time in New York's history, and from 2-3PM stay to hear testimonies from contemporary veterans and residents of the city. As one former resident of Manhattan puts it: "It was an extraordinary time. So New Yorkers, as they always do, became extraordinary to meet it."_

* * *

For the first time in six years Alice walked the streets of Brooklyn. There was a bite in the air that threatened snow, but she had a heavy coat and thick boots, and had no desire to huddle up by a fire.

At first she stayed away from the neighborhoods she knew. She walked down the busy streets packed with new stores and busy shoppers, and lost herself in the crowd. Then she started edging her way into familiar territory: she strode past the first dance hall she'd performed in, past Brooklyn Bridge park with its view of the looming bridge and its crowd of memories. She walked down the road past Brooklyn Junior High, then walked the few blocks to Brooklyn Senior High. The buildings seemed… strange, after her years away. They seemed much smaller, somehow more ordinary than her memories. She circled back and found the stoop where she'd first _really _met Steve and Bucky: the time Billy Russel threw her book in the puddle. Alice smiled at the memory.

She didn't dare go past Steve and Bucky's houses. She was too afraid they'd see her on the street and… well. She wasn't sure what she'd do if that happened.

At first, Alice felt strange. Like she was trying to put on a shoe that didn't fit any more. She felt like Gulliver on the island of Lilliput, too large and too strange to truly fit in. But with each familiar place she passed Alice felt the hard, cold shell she'd constructed around herself begin to slide away. She passed the police station, and realized that she didn't need to fear it. She spotted familiar faces: the same elderly Polish baker with flour on his hands, the postman on his bicycle, the surly-faced man at the newspaper stall. Alice's heart warmed at the sight of them but she slid past before they could see her. She eyed the film titles advertised at the cinema and only felt warm nostalgia, instead of resentment.

Alice had grown to love Austria in her time there, she realized. But she had also learned to fear it. Now, as she strode an inch taller and a lifetime older down the streets she knew by heart, she realized that she had come home. And yet it didn't feel quite real. It felt as if she were walking a dreamscape of her childhood. Brooklyn, to her, wasn't made up of its buildings and streets. It was made up of _people._

Her thoughts preoccupied her so much that she didn't realize where her feet were taking her until she heard the familiar tinkle of a bell over a doorway.

Her feet stalled and she glanced up with wide eyes.

_JOHNSON TAILOR SHOP_, read the sign over the door. Not many people would notice, but there was a spot of brown paint on the corner of the sign; Alice still remembered her mom telling her off for spilling the paint. Matthias had sided with her mom that Alice needed to be more careful, but then had gathered them both up under his arms (this had been before Tom, even) and said: _No need to worry. No one's ever going to notice but us._

Alice let out a shaky breath. She could see herself in the dim reflection of the glass windows: a pale-faced blonde woman with wide green eyes, swallowed up in a thick winter coat. The last time she'd seen this shop she'd just been a girl who thought she understood how the world worked.

Alice swallowed and realized her throat had become uncomfortably dry.

The bell over the door chimed again as it opened from the inside, and on seeing Alice standing there the customer on his way out held it open for her, smiling.

"Thank you," Alice rasped, and walked inside without thinking. She couldn't very well stand outside in the cold and stare at the shop like a criminal.

Inside, the shop was warm. If she'd thought her school seemed small it was nothing to Matthias's store: she remembered it being cozy, but now she looked at the narrow walls and racks of clothing and thought _is this it?_

She realized she was standing dumbly in the doorway, so she took a few paces in and ran her hand over a pile of folded fabrics, letting out a slow breath as the cloth brushed her skin. The shop was reasonably busy, with about eight customers perusing the racks or lining up to talk to the man behind the register (Alice recognized him as Matthias's cousin, but he hadn't known her well enough to recognize her now).

_I used to know every square inch of this place_.

Alice ached to go to the back room. She wondered if her old comics were still back there; she hadn't had enough time to pack them after her mom and Matthias died. The idea of reading _Buck Rogers_ and _Famous Funnies _again made her smile.

The smile vanished from her face when she heard the squeaky hinge to the back room door as it swung open. Her eyes flew up.

A young man walked through the door from the back room, calling to the man at the register in a teasing manner. He strolled over to speak in a lower tone, gesturing to the back room with a wry smile.

And Alice couldn't move. Because that was _Tom._

He wasn't a little boy anymore. She knew exactly how old he was – thirteen – but he looked like a young man. He must be as tall as her shoulder now, and she could see signs of a growth spurt: his long limbs were gangly as he gestured to the man at the register, and he was losing the baby fat around his face. His dark hair grew thick and wild, and he had an easy grace about him that reminded her of Matthias. And yet she saw her mother in the quirk of his brow and the lighter tone to his skin.

Tom must have sensed eyes boring into him, because he looked up to see the white lady at the other end of the store staring at him. Alice couldn't look away. She couldn't even move: she was half twisted toward the back of the shop with her hands frozen on a pile of fabric. Her eyes were bone dry, which she knew meant she was about to burst into tears.

Tom's eyes narrowed, then widened. He took a step back. "_Alice?_" he mouthed. No sound came out.

Alice's shaky hand rose to her mouth. _This wasn't meant to happen. _She'd been hoping, deep down, but it was a stupid, foolish hope. Wetness at her fingers told her she'd started crying. It felt like someone had taken a deep gouge out of her chest. She wanted to double over, hold herself and gasp for breath.

Tom paced slowly towards her. Alice still couldn't move.

"Alice," he breathed when he was close enough to touch. His voice wasn't quite a man's yet but it was deeper than she remembered; close to breaking. His eyes were wide. "It's you, isn't it?"

Alice met her little brother's eyes, and nodded silently because she couldn't speak. His eyes welled with tears to match hers and his breath whooshed out of him. He didn't seem to know what to do.

Feeling zinged back through Alice's limbs and she reached out to land a fumbling touch on Tom's shoulder. He was warm, and shaking slightly.

Tom blinked, and seemed to realize that this should not be a public moment. "Come to the back with me," he murmured.

He grabbed the end of her sleeve (like he used to when he was little, Alice remembered), and pulled her through to the back of the store. "I need to speak with this customer," he told his relative at the register, and then they were walking through the back door into the room Alice knew so well.

It looked slightly different, but it was still clearly a private haven; the radio on the bench played soft jazz, and there were comic books and cards strewn around on piles of fabric and half-finished clothes.

When Tom shut the door behind them Alice grabbed his shoulders and held him at arms length, trying to fight back tears. He looked back at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. She was right: he was just a head shorter than her.

"You're so _big_," she finally said, and then properly burst into tears.

She caught a glimpse of gleaming tears on his face as well just before he darted forward to wrap his arms around her so tight that she could barely breathe. He was _strong._

For a long time the two of them just held each other tightly and cried. Tom shook in her arms, and Alice didn't know how she'd ever thought she could be in New York and not find him. She'd forgotten a lot of her heart overseas.

Alice laid a hand on the back of his head and held him to her.

Eventually they sat down, tired from crying, and Tom pulled away with red eyes and a sniffly nose to ask: "How are you here? Why are you here? Are you staying?"

Alice wiped her eyes then reached out to mess up his hair like she used to do. She couldn't stop staring at him. "I… there's a lot I can't tell you, Tom. You can't tell anyone else that I'm in Brooklyn. Not even Molly."

"Why?"

"I… can't tell you." She grimaced, but Tom just nodded trustingly (despite a little frustration). He had the same triad of dark freckles by his ear. "I won't be here for long."

"Where are you going? Back to Austria?" His mouth turned down. "Even with the war?"

Alice let out a deep sigh and then smiled at him. "I promise that one day, I will tell you everything." She looked into his eyes to make sure he knew how serious she was. "But I'm here, Tom. I…" she opened and closed her mouth a few times, drinking him in. "I want to learn everything about you. Letters can only say so much. Who are your friends? What are you doing at school? Where are your favorite places to hang out?"

As she spoke she felt his excitement rising, as if it had just sunk in that she was _here _and right in front of him. For a moment he looked back at her with wet eyes and shaky fingers. Then he opened his mouth and began to tell her everything.

She and Tom spent the rest of the day together. After a few minutes in the back room they went out again (Alice bought a blue silk scarf just for cover, feeling strange about being a customer at the shop for the first time ever), then met Tom across the street. They went to a café which Tom proclaimed was his favorite in Brooklyn (it was new, Alice remembered when it used to be a bookstore), and Alice treated her little brother to anything he wanted.

Over two tall chocolate sundaes, she learned about his life. His school in Harlem was bigger than the one in Brooklyn, but it sounded like he had a good group of friends and even a few girls he hung out with from time to time. Alice didn't ask directly, but something inside her unwound when she realized that the war had barely touched his life. Tom was safe here.

When she reached the bottom of her sundae, her gaze flicked around the mostly empty booths of the café and the grimy windows. "Do you… do you see Steve and Bucky often?"

"They still check up on me about once a month," Tom said with a look that reminded Alice of the look she used to wear when Matthias got overprotective. It made her lips quirk. "Bucky's at basic training right now I think, and Steve's got a job at the _Brooklyn Daily Eagle. _They've been just as curious about you lately as I have." Tom hesitated, then looked at her with a keen glance. "Did you and Steve… were you ever…?" he trailed off, scrunching his nose.

Alice laughed. "What?"

"I dunno," Tom said. "I guess I've always thought he was sweet on you."

"You did?" she asked smoothly. "When?"

He eyed her over his sundae. "Oh my god, you're sweet on him too!" he accused. "I knew it!"

Alice laughed at his teenage horror, even as her cheeks went pink. _Was this the life I could have had if I stayed? _This all felt… alarmingly normal.

Tom settled back in his seat. "Do they know you're back?"

She shook her head.

He frowned. "Really?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I just… pretty much every memory of you that I have has them in it. Find it hard to think of you keeping secrets from them."

"You'd be surprised," she said heavily.

Tom slurped his sundae. "Why won't you tell 'em you're back? They'd lose their minds."

Alice pointedly did _not _think about how it would feel to see Steve and Bucky again. "Because I can't stay."

"You came to see me."

She almost said _I didn't mean to_, but that would be cruel, so she didn't. "I… it's complicated, Tom."

"That's just what adults say when they mean _I don't know_," he accused.

She shot him a sharp look. "When did you get so smart?"

They traded teasing and old memories back and forth, and Alice realized as the minutes flew by that she was smiling easier, laughing more often. And it wasn't just from seeing her brother again. Tom had become his own person, and she _liked _him. He was funny, quick with a joke or a clever comment, and seemed to understand her quiet façade almost instantly. He filled the silences with ease.

Patrons at the café came and went. Someone turned on the jukebox, which started belting out old hits. Tom started tapping his fingers on the countertop when the faster-paced _Doug the Jitterbug _started playing, and about halfway through he interrupted his own story about his math teacher to start singing along.

"_Young and wild with lots of style, that's Doug the Jitterbug!"_

With delight, Alice joined him. Tom was _good_, with a mellow voice that she could sense maturing into something deeper. He had a good ear for tune and he harmonized with her effortlessly. Her high, clear voice weaved in and out of his lower one as they sang along to the trumpets. Their fingers tapped on the table and they bounced their knees, grinning as they sang. The few other people in the café looked over, and when they finished the last lyric they got a smattering of applause before everyone turned back to their drinks.

"You can sing," Alice said breathlessly, her heart bursting. She'd been singing in public for five years now, for princes and politicians and generals, but nothing had come close to that impromptu duet over a Brooklyn café countertop.

Tom shrugged. "Started when you started sending me those records. I've been going to the halls around Harlem, learning a lot there. I remember… I kinda remember mom and dad. I remember dad singing me to sleep." Alice's smile instantly dropped. Tom had only been seven when their mom and Matthias died. The same age she had been when her own father died, and she barely remembered him.

Alice reached across the table and laid her hand over his. "They'd be so proud of you, Tom."

He didn't look away from their hands. "You think so?"

"I know so. Mom would say…" Alice's breath hitched. "Mom would be so amazed at how tall you've gotten, and how handsome." Tom blushed and looked away. "I mean it. She was a touchy person, you know, she'd be all over you. Kissing your cheeks, mussing your hair, you wouldn't be able to get away from her." Tom smiled. Alice kept going: "Matth- your dad was a bit of a crier. He'd take one look at you and burst into tears."

"Kinda like you did," Tom said teasingly.

Alice laughingly acknowledged him. "That's true. He'd want to sing with you too. He'd dance you around the room like he used to when you were small. He'd want to hear every up and down of your life, and…" Alice shook her head in fond reminiscence. It felt like warmth trickling back into her chest after years of freezing cold. "He'd give you that look, like you're the most important person in the universe. Because you are, Tom. You were their world."

She'd brought Tom to the brink of tears. He took in a sharp breath, his gleaming eyes avoiding her own. "I… I love Molly. She's like my second mom. But… I miss them."

"I know." Alice's eyes burned. "I miss them too. Every day."

Tom looked up at her with red eyes. "Can you… can you tell me more about them?"

"Of course," she breathed. "I'll tell you anything you want."

They kept talking until it got dark out, and Tom realized that he'd be missed at home soon. As they were collecting their things to leave, the elderly gentleman who'd been sitting at the booth across from them got up to go to the bathroom. Alice sensed his eyes on them a moment before he spoke, and she tensed.

"_Oughta be ashamed of yourselves_," she heard him mutter as he strode past.

Alice's muscles locked. She watched the man as he strode across the café toward the bathroom, and caught the disgusted look he shot over his shoulder at them before he disappeared. For a moment she saw herself and Tom through his eyes: a young white woman with a young black (appearing) man, laughing and talking like they'd known each other for years. Clearly the man couldn't see the youth in Tom's face, or the true nature of their love for each other.

A quick glance at Tom showed that his eyes had gone weary and his shoulders stiff. He picked up his coat and stood. _Turn the other cheek._

Alice wanted to follow the old man into the bathroom and drown him in a toilet bowl.

As if sensing the sharp, glittering anger cutting Alice up from the inside, Tom hunched his shoulders. "C'mon," he said. "Let's get out of here."

Alice stood smoothly from the booth. "I just have one last thing to do."

"Alice-"

But she'd already moved across to the booth the old man had just left. He had a half finished coffee and a newspaper open on the counter, and he'd left his briefcase on the booth seat. With a quick glance around, Alice swiped the salt up from his table and started shaking it into his coffee.

"Alice," Tom repeated, but there was a smile in his voice.

She looked over her shoulder as she selected a teaspoon and started stirring the salt into the coffee. "What?"

He grinned at her, though his eyes kept darting toward the bathroom. "Hurry up."

"Just one moment."

She set the salt and teaspoon back, then grabbed the pot of cream, flipped open the man's briefcase and poured the white liquid liberally over the papers inside. Tom snorted behind her.

She heard the bathroom door open. She flipped the briefcase closed, returned the cream pot, then turned away to take Tom's arm and walk him out of the café. As she held the door open for him, the elderly man walked into the main room of the café and narrowed his eyes at the sight of them. Alice shot him a sweet smile and then walked out onto the street.

Tom was waiting for her with an incredulous look on his laughing face. "I see now why Bucky calls you a troublemaker."

Alice lifted her chin. "Do as I say, Tom, and not as I do – and you should never do anything like that."

"I ain't crazy enough to-"

Alice glimpsed the old man through the window as he reached for his coffee, and she reached out to take Tom's arm again. "Hurry now."

Tom had to get on the train back home, but they agreed to meet the next morning in Harlem.

"I've got Sunday school in the afternoon," he said apologetically. "But I can show you around before that."

They clung to each other at the train station as if they'd never see each other again. They hadn't gotten a proper goodbye, last time. Tom had been too young to understand death or how far away Austria truly was. He hadn't understood why Alice was crying when she hugged him at the port.

Alice recalled how her uncle had looked on at their last farewell with poorly concealed disgust in his eyes, and hugged Tom all the harder.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she promised.

She walked home in the sharp cold of January under the yellow streetlights, her hands in her pockets and her breath coming out as vapor.

That night she lay sleepless in bed, staring at the ceiling. When sleeplessness itched at her eyes and the shadows of the room seemed hazy, she began to whisper into the silence. She whispered about Tom: how much he'd grown, what he liked and what he didn't like, the future she could see glinting just out of reach for him. She whispered as if her mom and Matthias might hear. As if they were sitting just out of sight on the edge of her bed, like they used to do when nightmares kept her up.

"I wish you could meet him," she whispered, and her tears trickled into the soft cotton of her pillow.

* * *

Letter from Maureen Higgins (Brooklyn Senior High School senior administrative assistant) to Principal Wallace, October 2 1946

_Dear David,_

_Regarding your last letter, I agree that the upcoming 10 year reunion ought to be combined with a memorial. I've just started chasing up the graduating year of 1936 and I've discovered from newspaper obituaries that at least twenty of them so far died in the war. Most notably, of course, Captain Steve Rogers (his friend, James Barnes, would have graduated in 1935 but left the school in 1934 to pursue employment)._

_I've included a list below of those former students who have passed, and those who I've been unable to track down._

_Best,  
Maureen_

Excerpt from Principal Wallace's reply, October 3 1946

_Maureen,_

_Agreed. Let's set up a memorial service in the early afternoon, and have the standard reunion afterwards. I'll talk to Connie about arrangements. We can time the memorial with the unveiling of the plaque for Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes, if we ask the caretaker to get a move on._

_I've responded to the list of missing alumni with my suggestions below._

_..._

_... similarly, regarding #15 (Alice Moser), if your records indicate that she moved before graduating, I wouldn't expend too much effort in attempting to contact her. You said there was no forwarding address and that she hasn't been in contact with the school since then, so we'll count that as a no-show._

* * *

The next morning, Tom cocked an eyebrow at the canvas bag Alice had brought with her to the Harlem train station.

"What's that?"

Alice didn't answer the question until they were wrapped in the bustle of the pedestrians on the side of the road, walking down the street past a park. She held the bag to her chest, then looked over at her little brother.

"Can you keep this safe for me?"

Tom raised a second eyebrow. "What is it?"

"Nothing, really. Letters, records, a few photos." Alice decided not to tell him that they'd been buried in her garden for months. "But I can't keep them in Austria. Could you… keep them somewhere safe?" She flipped open the canvas flap and showed him the corner of cardboard-bound records. "You can listen to the records. But don't read my letters."

Tom laughed and took the bag from her. "What are they, love letters?"

Alice's ears burned. They _were _letters from Steve, but to call them _that_… she shook herself. "Can you look after them or not?"

Tom waved a hand at her. "I can, don't worry." He slung the bag over his shoulder, then cocked his head to the side as they walked. "So what're you in New York for?" Alice opened her mouth and he added: "I know you can't tell me, but just… give me a hint?"

She sighed. It was an unseasonably warm day for January, and she'd woken up with a strange prickling across her skin: a sense of purpose. "I… I'm here to help people." She looked straight ahead. "I think I might… maybe have a chance at a new kind of job. Something big." _But I won't find out until tomorrow._

"You're going to stop singing?"

"No. Probably not. It's-"

"Complicated, I know." Tom rolled his eyes at her, but a few minutes later his expression went sharp. "Is this _job_ dangerous?"

Alice fought not to let her surprise show on her face – Tom was quick. "Maybe," she said in a moment of rare honesty. It felt good.

Tom's face fell.

"But I'm hoping to learn how to be safer," she added. Her lips pursed. "Now don't ask me any more questions about it."

"Alright, bossy." He hiked the bag further up on his shoulder then nodded across the road. "Here we are, this is the jazz club I wanted to show you."

They walked around Tom's neighborhood for the rest of the morning as he pointed out his school, his favorite haunts, and the places he wanted to perform at one day. Alice pointed out the clubs and dance halls she remembered Matthias singing at, and the two of them beamed over their memories of the light-hearted, hard working tailor.

After lunch Alice walked Tom to his Sunday school, and found herself alone once more.

She turned around and made her way back to Brooklyn.

* * *

Alice wound up, as she had so many times before, at Brooklyn Bridge Park. She sat on a wooden park bench with her chin in her hand and the sun in her eyes as she looked across the water. There were a few families in the park, filling the air with the sound of laughter and children playing. Seagulls squawked in the distance.

If the buildings of Brooklyn had seemed smaller, the bridge seemed somehow larger and more imposing than ever – she traced the stone and cables with her eyes to the other side of the river. Then her gaze flicked up to the Manhattan skyline, with the Empire State soaring over it all.

Alice had dreamed this moment so many times. But it wasn't _right._

She ran a hand over her face and let out a sigh as she eyed the Manhattan skyline. She'd come over with so many firm ideas about secrecy and keeping business separate from personal. _You'll only put them in danger_, she told herself again.

But she'd seen Tom, and nothing bad had happened. Nothing bad _would_ happen, since there was no way anyone would find out about him.

_You can't tell them anything._

Tom hadn't minded.

_It would be cruel to appear, only to leave again._

Alice dropped her head in her hands. She couldn't argue with that one.

Five minutes later, Alice stood up from the park bench and dusted off her skirt. Then she turned on her heel and started walking. She strode down familiar streets and turned corners she knew like the back of her hand, and her heart slowly rose up her throat into her mouth.

A block away from her destination, she tugged at her winter coat. She wasn't dressed very fashionably, but she'd never have been able to afford even these clothes before. They were clean, and tidy, and –

_Get a grip,_ she told herself crossly. _It doesn't matter what you're wearing._

She came to a stumbling halt outside a dull brick tenement building with rattly metal stairs out the front. She'd climbed those stairs who knew how many times. She set her foot on the first step and began to climb.

Finally she found herself at the door to what she used to think of _Steve and his mom's apartment. _Now it was just _Steve's_. She swallowed dryly.

_He might not be home._

Her heart was pounding so hard that she thought she might be sick. Her legs felt shivery. She raised a fist.

_If he's not home, you turn around, walk away, and never come back._

Her fist fell against the door in a sharp knock.

For a few moments all she heard was the sound of her own sharp, shallow breathing.

She knocked again.

_Nothing. _Her heart clenched painfully. _Maybe he moved._

She shuffled to the side to peer through a window, but it was obscured by an off-yellow curtain. _Surely he'd have told me if he moved._ She chewed her lip and thought.

Alice eventually settled on walking back downstairs, but with the open street before her and the world beyond, she couldn't make herself walk away. In her head was a short, blonde, stubborn boy who'd somehow worked his way deep into her heart and could not be removed no matter how hard she tried.

She let out a breath and settled on the stoop outside the tenement, where she must have spent hours of her childhood waiting for Steve. She was happy to wait as long as it took now.

* * *

_**~ I will wait ~** _

* * *

"All I'm saying, pal, is that if you make me see _Gone With the Wind _one more goddamned time-"

"I didn't know that's all they'd have on!" Bucky protested as he laughed at the sour look on Steve's face. They both walked with their hands stuffed in their pockets and their scarves pulled tight against the chill wind down the Brooklyn streets. "Besides, this is only what, the third time?"

"Three times too many," Steve muttered as he squinted against another bitter wind. He cocked his head. "At least this time you didn't try to trick me into another disaster date."

"Some fellas would pay to be _tricked _into spending an evening with a beautiful woman," Bucky pointed out with a grin.

"That's prostitution, Buck."

"That it is," he said with a considering nod. "You're a punk, Steve."

Steve squinted across at Bucky with an unimpressed gaze for a few moments longer before he broke, grinned, and shoved his shoulder into Bucky's. "Jerk."

It was good to have Bucky back. He'd been at basic training ever since he enlisted, save for Christmas, but he'd finally gotten a weekend break. Steve got so wrapped up in his own head without someone to pull him outside to get some sun (what little of it there was to be had in January), and seeing Bucky healthy and happy helped ease the slight sting of envy. He'd had another _4F _stamp in the Bronx a few days ago.

They walked and bickered for a few more minutes, weaving to dodge piles of slush and trash and to throw each other off balance with their shoulders.

Bucky was the first to notice. He laughed at one of Steve's quietly muttered jokes, then glanced up for a moment as they rounded a corner. Half a second later he stopped in his tracks.

_Could be anyone_, was Bucky's first, numb thought. But he knew it wasn't.

Steve walked a few more steps before looking back with a frown at Bucky's sudden stop. "Buck?" His frown deepened, and he followed Bucky's gaze to the front of the tenement building.

He saw the blonde woman sitting on the stoop outside the building with her chin on her fist, her face turned away, and his stomach bottomed out.

"Bucky," he croaked. They were hundreds of yards up the street. "Is it…"

"I dunno, pal," Bucky said in a strangely hoarse voice. "But we're having the same hallucination if it isn't." The woman's hair shifted a little in the breeze, but she didn't turn her head. She wore a dark winter coat and her heeled shoe was propped against the curb.

"But she's not…" They'd started walking again, their footsteps slow and wary. Steve slowly picked up the pace until he was almost jogging. He almost tripped over his own feet and Bucky had to reach out to steady him. He pressed forward, unblinking.

And then the young woman sitting outside the tenement turned toward the oncoming footsteps and the weak January sunlight streaming through the buildings fell on her face, and Steve thought that he might be having his first heart attack.

He stopped dead again. Bucky stopped a few paces behind him.

Alice Moser slowly rose from her seated position on the stoop, staring. Her wide eyes drank in the sight of them. She wasn't quite smiling, but her face wasn't blank either. Her chest rose and fell as if she was the one who'd been running.

The three of them stood there on the street, staring at each other.

"Is it over?" Steve asked. Because he'd dreamed about this moment: the war is over, and Alice had come back to Brooklyn like she always promised.

Alice's eyes shadowed and she shook her head, but Steve didn't care, because suddenly it didn't matter if the whole world was at war because Alice was just twenty, ten, five feet away from him. They were both moving, he realized, and then they collided in an awkward tangle of limbs and laughing and crying. Bucky was half a second behind and scooped them both into his arms, squeezing so tight that Steve thought he might die.

Alice's skin was cold as she shook in their arms. Steve's ears were filled with laughter and crying, mostly from Alice, and he tried to hold her tighter. He realized that even without the heels she wore she was taller than him.

"You came back," he breathed. For some reason that made Bucky laugh. He got a glimpse of Alice's gleaming green eyes, just inches away from his own as Bucky squeezed them tighter. There was hurt in those eyes, but so much joy as well.

A shaky smile lifted her lips. "I promised I would, didn't I?"


	27. Chapter Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to sit on this chapter for a week and I've been productive, so here you go!

Clipping from _Good Morning America _show April 14th, 2005: 

_"Today, renowned Russian composer Dmitri Mager-Loginov would have turned 137! The composer, best known for his operas in the Romantic period, was lost at sea on a crossing to England…"_

* * *

Alice, Steve and Bucky bundled up to the apartment in a rush of adrenaline-fueled conversation. At the foot of the stairs Alice told them about her uncle, and had to repress a smile at the unsure way Steve and Bucky offered their condolences.

"It's alright," she said eventually, trying not to smile _too _widely at the thought of her dead uncle. Bucky and Steve each let out a relieved breath and then they thundered up the stairs. They all exclaimed at least three times how good it was to see each other again, and how different they'd all become. Because they _were_, Alice realized: Bucky was taller than she remembered, with a thick head of dark hair and a sense of stillness and watchfulness that Alice didn't remember noticing in him before. Steve was still small, but he'd grown too. Since she'd left he'd become a man with serious eyes and a strong well of determination. He opened the door to his house with his key, set down his wallet on the counter inside the door and then gestured them inside.

Alice tried not to stare too obviously at him as she walked in. That first glimpse of him on the street had… it had frozen the breath in her chest and the blood in her veins and set her every hair on end. And then he'd run to her, and…

She hadn't cried so much in a long time. And now she couldn't take her eyes off him.

The boys bustled inside in a rush of noise, and after toeing off her shoes Alice came to a halt just at the end of the entry hall, staring around at the familiar apartment. Her childhood home might belong to someone else now, but this place was so familiar to her heart that it ached: the radio on the counter with the telegraph key still wired up to the back of it, the photo of Steve's dad on the wall (now accompanied by a portrait of his mom, she saw with a pang). She spotted a pile of letters with her handwriting on them on the table and just like that she was crying again; silent, wide-eyed tears that slid down her face.

Bucky and Steve were fussing, tidying the table and the couch and ducking into the kitchen to get Alice something to drink, but after a moment Steve stopped in his tracks long enough to look up and _see _Alice: a woman now, standing in nice clothes with so much _hurt _in her eyes, tears streaming silently down her cheeks.

His heart seized. Steve grabbed a clean handkerchief from the coffee table and rushed over to her. Panic tweaked at his chest – he'd never known how to handle crying women – but this was _Alice._

"Hey there," he said softly as Bucky clinked around in the kitchen. "S'alright, Alice. You're home now."

That made something in her expression crack, and he wasn't sure it was a good thing. But Alice took the handkerchief. Their fingers brushed and Steve's cheeks went pink at the electric crackle that sparked across his skin. He flexed his fingers and shoved his hand in his pocket.

Alice dabbed at her face, then beamed at him. "I am home," she said warmly.

_Alice Moser. _In his apartment. After five years of missing her. Steve stared stupidly at her.

A moment later Alice's smile grew a little wider, and then she swooped in to wrap her arms around him before Steve could do anything about it. Her collarbone slotted in above his, their shoulders bumped, and he swallowed at the feeling of her pressed against him before he raised his shaking arms to hold her.

"Thank you, Steve," Alice breathed. Her breath tickled the back of his neck.

For the life of him he couldn't think of what to say.

Bucky walked back in from the kitchen, carrying three water glasses. "Aw, Steve, you made her cry already."

Steve jerked away. "I didn't!" he glanced back at Alice, who was still smiling as she dabbed at her eyes again. "Did I?"

She flapped a hand at him. "You didn't. Guess I've just been… holding it in."

"Just for us? You shouldn't have," Bucky said drily. "Sit down before you fall down, Moser."

"I see you're just as much a charmer as ever," she replied primly as she took a seat on the couch. Bucky took the armchair, and Steve dithered a moment before sitting beside Alice.

Alice let out a shaky breath. She hadn't planned for all this… _emotion_. What a fool she was.

Bucky set his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. "So you're back, right Al? For good?"

The handkerchief fell to her lap as she hesitated. That old nickname, Al, reminded her of what she had been doing – and what more she had yet to do – back across the ocean.

Steve stiffened. "_Alice-_"

"I don't know," she said. "I can't… no one knows that I'm here, and I… I haven't decided what I'll do." A clunky half truth that felt exactly like a lie.

"You're safe here," Bucky said firmly.

"I know." But that wasn't a final answer.

A tense, awkward silence reigned for a few moments. It felt overwhelming to finally be in the same room as Steve and Bucky after years of half-believing she'd never see them again. She didn't often think she was dreaming, but today was an exception. Bucky and Steve traded glances while they thought she wasn't looking. The clock on the wall ticked obnoxiously.

Finally, Alice took in a deep breath, smiled, and then said: "So. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes." They looked up, and their worry fell away at the vibrant grin on her face. Alice leaned forward. "Tell me _everything_."

For the next hour the three of them caught up on everything they'd missed in each other's lives in the past five years. At first it was strange, like looking at a childhood photograph and not quite recognizing the person in it. Steve didn't say so much out loud as he did in his letters. But all it took was a few teasing barbs from Bucky and that same old wry half-smile on Steve's face as he looked at her, and Alice fell back into the easy rhythm of sharing her mind with her closest friends in the world.

They mostly repeated stuff they'd told her in their letters, along with jokes and arguments about whose account of an event was most accurate. Alice listened to it all with delight. When it came her turn to relate what she'd been up to, she stuck with the same half-truths and vague sentences that she had with Tom. Nothing about her network back in Austria, nothing about what she'd been doing. Just the singing, and funeral arrangements, and how it had been _hard._

As Alice spoke about some friends she'd been to coffee with recently (leaving out all names and identifying information, of course), Steve cocked his head. "How's Jilí?"

Alice's smile dropped. Her face became rigid stone, and Steve and Bucky instantly knew. But she told them anyway. "She… went missing. She's probably dead."

Steve looked so heartbroken that it broke her heart all over again, that he would grieve for a woman he never knew. Bucky's face fell.

A long, sad moment passed. Alice realized that she had not really dealt with the aching void of losing Jilí. She'd just filled the hole with ice and kept on. But something about being around Steve made the ice inside her thaw. She wasn't sure it was a good thing.

Steve cleared his throat, shooting her a concerned look from under his fringe. "I'm sorry, Alice."

Alice swallowed thickly. "So am I."

His brow furrowed. "I'll… I'm going to go make some tea. Like mom used to." He got to his feet, knees creaking, and padded into the kitchen. He walked closely past Alice, so she could feel the warmth of his body as he went past.

Alice closed her eyes. She could feel Bucky's eyes on her, so after another moment of listening to Steve clatter and rustle in the kitchen she stood up and began pacing around the room. _That's the book Steve lent me in middle school_, she noted as she walked past the bookshelf. _This is the patch of carpet where we almost kissed, that winter morning before I went away._ She went to inspect the dried flowers on the windowsill. Restlessness rolled off her like static energy.

"How are you doing, Alice?" came Bucky's voice from the armchair.

Alice eyed the brown, flaking petals of a lavender stalk. "I'm alright."

He made a low sound at the back of his throat. "And exactly how long are you planning on staying in Brooklyn?"

Her head snapped around. "Bucky-"

He spread his hands. "I get it, you don't want to talk about it. But if you are going back…"

"What?" she asked bluntly.

He sighed. "I dunno. Guess I don't know why you'd want to go back. Seems to me both you and Steve want you to be in Brooklyn."

"Seems to me you want to get over to Europe," she replied, arching an eyebrow at him.

Bucky shrugged and leaned back in the armchair. In the kitchen the kettle whistled. "Guess you've got me there. I'm on weekend furlough from training."

"And how is that going?" she asked evenly. Her last letter hung in the air between them. She realized now how scary her words must have been for Bucky and Steve – here in Brooklyn the war felt distant, like something in stories. Her raw, frightened letter must have been a shock.

"I'm in marksmanship training at the moment, commanders reckon I've got a knack for it." He shrugged again. "Might be looking at a promotion to Sergeant by the time I get my orders."

Alice tried not to let the news hurt her. She just nodded silently, wishing she could lock them both up somewhere and hide them away from the world.

Clinking echoed out of the kitchen and Alice's head turned toward it. With a sigh, Bucky got to his feet and walked over to Alice. "I just…" he jerked his head toward the kitchen before turning warm eyes on her. His voice was low. "Steve's tried to enlist three times already, doll. Go easy on him." Alice could tell he was talking about so much more about the enlistment attempts, but it was the easiest thing to speak aloud.

"Of course," she said softly. "And if you ever call me doll again I'll hamstring you."

Bucky grinned. "She's back. Missed you, troublemaker." He slung an arm around her shoulder and they both leaned in for a hug. Alice closed her eyes.

At that moment Steve walked back in with three mugs of tea, and he went soft and warm at the sight of his two friends embracing – save for a glint of something like worry in his eyes.

"Don't worry, punk," Bucky laughed as he released Alice. "I'm not moving in on your girl."

Both Steve and Alice blushed.

"Jerk," Steve huffed at Bucky. His eyes flickered toward Alice. She could sense unspoken questions on his tongue.

Bucky looked between them, huffed a sigh, and then rolled his eyes heavenward. "So, Al." She glanced over to him. He rolled his eyes heavily as he glanced away from Steve. "Meet anyone nice over in Austria? Any boys chasing you?"

She eyed Bucky for a few dangerous seconds. She could feel every iota of Steve's attention on her, the drinks in his hands almost forgotten. "They might be chasing me," she eventually said. "But I'm too fast."

Bucky laughed, and when Alice glanced over to Steve he gave her a smile, then blushed, then tried to make the smile seem less relieved. He brought the tea over.

"Missed you, Alice," he said quietly as he handed her a mug.

Alice took the mug between her cold palms and felt herself thaw a little more. She looked into Steve's serious blue eyes and smiled. "I missed you too."

* * *

The next morning found Alice shivering and breathing vapor with her gloved hands pressed between her knees as she sat on an icy wooden bench in Central Park. She'd been sitting there only five minutes, not wanting to be too early nor too late, but the cold was already nipping at her exposed skin. It was just approaching ten in the morning, and the park was surprisingly busy. Students strode down the footpaths in long winter coats, and young men on leave from the army strolled with their sweethearts. Most people were moving about to get their blood moving. Alice had to sit there as the cold gnawed at her bones and tiredness itched at her eyes.

She'd stayed up far too late with Steve and Bucky, as mugs of tea turned into mugs of cheap brown liquor. They'd laughed at old memories for so long that Alice's sides had ached and her lungs had wheezed for air. She couldn't remember the last time that happened.

She'd insisted on going back to her hotel, more to clear her head than out of any sense of social propriety, and Bucky and Steve had walked her there in the early hours of the morning. When they'd said farewell at the door, Alice had promised she'd see them again today. It wasn't a good idea.

But now. The whole reason she'd come here. She'd memorized the instructions Vera had given her on the darkened shore in France, knowing they were too important to write down: when and where to meet the representative from the mysterious _SSR._

Alice blew out a white breath and rubbed her hands together. A headache was grinding to life behind her eyes, no doubt thanks to Steve's bottom-shelf liquor.

Alice generally had pretty good situational awareness. She watched people and places, searching for clues and secrets all around her. So she blamed her budding hangover and lack of sleep for not noticing the person approaching her until they appeared on the seat beside her like magic.

Alice caught a glimpse of color out of the corner of her eye and flinched, skidding on the icy seat.

Quickly composing her face, she stared at the newcomer: a woman with sharp dark eyes and dark curls, wearing a white blouse, olive green pencil skirt over stockings and a thick brown overcoat. She wore heels and a dark red shade of lipstick that made Alice want to shiver. This was a dangerously capable woman.

More than that, Alice realized as the other woman eyed her up and down: she looked _familiar. _But she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

The woman's eyes narrowed and Alice's heart pounded. _Does this woman know who I am?_

She swallowed, unsticking the lump in her throat. "Do you have a newspaper?"

The woman's eyes remained sharp, assessing. "No, I get my news on the radio."

Alice did not show an iota of surprise at the woman's smooth British accent, but she certainly felt it. _What's an Englishwoman doing all the way over here? _She cocked her head and said the final line of the code: "What a pity, I don't have a radio."

A shivering wind blew across the park, picking up fine ice crystals from the lawns and flinging them into the air. Alice and the woman continued to look at each other, neither one willing to break eye contact first. The woman's dark gaze was focused, and she held herself like a soldier.

_Where do I know you from? _Alice wanted to ask. But she didn't feel like that should be her first question. Plus, she was pretty sure the woman wouldn't tell her.

The woman stayed silent, staring, and Alice realized she would have to be the first to speak.

She drew a steadying breath. "I'd like to work with you."

The woman stayed silent. A tactic: get the other person to blab and fill the silence, revealing all their cards. Normally that was Alice's move.

Alice sighed. _How to do this without putting people in danger. _"I have… friends in Europe. All over the place. I know lots of other people, but I'm not friends with them." A pause. Lips pressed together. She cast her eyes heavenward, feeling the woman's gaze like a brand. _You've come this far, why not go the whole hog._ She turned and faced the woman directly. "I would like to give the Allies ongoing information about the workings of the Nazi government, the movements of their generals and troops, supply lines, and ongoing plans."

The woman's gaze didn't waver. "How do you have such information?"

Alice swallowed. "Obviously I don't have all of it. But I know a lot. And I'm good at finding things out. I _have been _finding things out. I want a secure, direct way to get that information to the people who can do something with it. Let me know what you need and I'll get it. I'd also like help with getting endangered people to safety."

Slowly, the woman's eyes dragged over Alice's face. It reminded Alice of the jewelry appraiser her uncle used to visit in Vienna: keen, trained eyes searching for the smallest flaw or blemish. For a few long moments the two of them sat in silence.

Finally, the woman straightened her shoulders. "Come to Ratner's dairy restaurant tomorrow at 0800." Then she stood, turned, and strode away down the path before Alice could speak another word.

Alice let her go. She watched the woman's straight back and perfectly-curled hair fade into a crowd of tourists and then disappear. She knew this game: trust, suspicion.

She let out a sigh of vapor and got to her feet.

* * *

_SSR Inter-office memo #18011942, Agent PC to File Room. _ Archived by Catherine Laurey, SHIELD Archivist

_Patricia. Please send up all the files we have on Alice Moser (alias: Siren). I believe we started a file on her following the incident at Castle Kauffman. Send the files into Phillips' office, I'll meet you there._

\- _Carter_

* * *

On her way back to her hotel, Alice noticed a dark car shadowing each turn she took through Manhattan. She supposed it was probably the agency the British woman belonged to, but she didn't want to bet on that, so she slipped into a mall to lose them. She emerged out a staff exit twenty minutes later in a completely different outfit and booked a taxi to Brooklyn.

Alice couldn't get the British woman's silent, assessing gaze out of her head for the rest of the day. She'd never met anyone quite so difficult to read.

That evening Alice went out for dinner with Steve, Bucky, and Tom at a Gowanus Italian restaurant which had been there since before any of them were born. Alice had expected some awkwardness, but when they all took their seats and started butchering the pronunciations of the items on the menu, she felt startled at how _easy _this was. Tom, Steve, and Bucky had in jokes she didn't understand, which felt bizarre but made her smile. There was always a funny story to be told, a piece of news to be given, a teasing joke.

Somehow she and Steve ended up sitting side by side, and though they only cast fleeting glances at each other sometimes their knuckles brushed, or their shoulders bumped, and it made Alice's guts twist so hard that she thought she might be sick. She wondered with alarm: _Did it feel like this before? _She'd been cold for so many years. No one else had ever made her feel like this. It almost made her want to push Steve away.

Tom and Bucky started arguing about baseball, and Steve lifted his gaze to Alice. "This must seem strange."

She took another bite of her pasta and met his eyes. Her stomach jolted. "Hm?"

Steve gestured to Tom and Bucky across the table, and then awkwardly between them. "Being back. Must feel weird."

Alice let her eyes track across the people around her. "Not really. This… feels like the way life is meant to be." Her expression shuttered. "It's my other life that's strange."

Steve's eyes darkened and he opened his mouth, but at that moment the waitress came over with their second round of drinks on a tray. Alice looked up with a bland smile, but something about the image of the woman approaching with the condensation-covered drinks sparked a memory at the back of her mind.

_Of course._

A castle in the Bavarian Alps. A room full of men in uniforms watching her sing, and after the song faded a push through the crowd–

A dark haired maid. _Would you care for a drink, Fra__u Siren?_

In the restaurant in Brooklyn, the waitress set Alice's whisky in front of her with a smile and then whisked away. Alice stared at the drink with wide eyes. The woman from this morning… had been in Europe? In Johann Schmidt's castle, no less?

A moment later she thought of the sad-eyed doctor – _Erskine _– and the rumors that a doctor had escaped to the Allies, and her heart leaped. _Could it be…?_

A pale, skinny hand landed on Alice's wrist and she almost flinched. Her eyes flicked to Steve's to find him shooting her a concerned glance.

"Alice?"

"I'm alright," she said, pasting a smile over her shock. Steve saw through her – remarkable, even after all these years, but drew his hand away from her wrist.

"As I was saying," came Bucky's warm voice, "let's have a toast!" he raised his beer and nudged Tom to lift his juice. Alice and Steve shared a wry glance before mimicking him.

"What're we toasting to?" Steve asked, moving almost unconsciously a little closer into Alice's space.

Bucky looked at them seriously over his bottle. "To Alice! And…" he looked around. "To Tom passing his test, and to military furlough, and to Steve losing his title as the most stubborn occupant of Brooklyn."

"What? Who did I – oh." Steve's ears flushed as he looked at Alice, and she rolled her eyes at him.

Tom cleared his throat. "Are we toasting?"

As one they leaned in to clink their drinks together, and the three boys cried: "To Alice!"

Alice's cheeks went pink and she smiled into her drink. By her side, Steve watched her with a warm smile.

Once Tom was on his train back to Harlem, Steve and Bucky walked Alice back to her hotel again. A block away from the hotel Bucky fell to a stop, cursing his shoelaces, and waved for them to go on ahead.

Alice shot him a sharp, knowing look, but walked ahead with Steve all the same.

For the first few moments they walked in silence in the orange streetlight. Their footsteps echoed in time. Alice wondered how long they'd spent walking the streets like this together, side by side.

Her mind still swirled with thoughts of the SSR woman from that morning, and the jarring sense of suddenly returning to a world that felt normal, so she couldn't think of what to say to Steve. Everything she considered was too earnest, to full of _feeling _for people who had only just re-met each other yesterday.

She thought of all those letters. _Yours, Alice._ She'd meant every word.

Steve opened his mouth first, his voice a surprise in the quiet of the night. "I don't know what kind of life you had over there," he said solemnly. Alice peeked at him out of the corner of her eye and saw him looking down at the pavement as he walked. His hands were in his pockets. "I know you couldn't tell me everything. But I know… I know you were scared. I know you lost people." His eyes flicked to hers, and Alice couldn't look away. Her breath caught in her chest.

"You don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to," he murmured. "But you and I…" he searched for the words for a moment. "We're friends, Alice. We have been for years. We still are, right?"

"Of course," she breathed, almost tripping over her own tongue in her haste to get the words out. "That's never changed, Steve. Never." The thought of Steve not being her friend felt like having the breath pressed out of her chest.

Steve's eyes were hard to see in the lamplight. "But you have changed."

Alice's throat constricted and her head jerked away, turning straight ahead. She fought to keep her breath steady.

Steve let out a frustrated noise. "I don't mean-" he stopped walking, so Alice had to stop and turn to face him. He was small but it was easy for Alice to forget that, given how much of her attention he always seemed to take up. Standing on the footpath in the dark, she couldn't look at anything else aside from the boy – _man, now_ – with his hair in his eyes and his hands gesturing helplessly.

Steve met her eyes. "What I mean to say is… you've changed, of course you have, and so've I. I'd like to…" something like desperation flitted across his gaze. "I'd like to get to know you."

Alice blinked. "But we've been writing each other letters for-"

"I know," a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. "And I've liked that. But can you honestly say that you know everything about me now?"

Alice's gaze turned assessing. She eyed Steve, little Steve Rogers who had grown up while she was away in a country tearing itself apart. At first, she understood Bucky's ever-pervasive instinct to _protect _him: Steve had skinny arms and hunched shoulders, and looked like a strong wind would carry him off. But in the next moment she saw, as she always had, that deep drive inside him that pushed for the world to be _better._ The stubborn jut of his jaw, the look in his dark blue eyes. He was nervous, that was plain to see, but under that was determination; as if this was a moment he had been thinking about for a long time.

Alice knew him, she thought. But looking into his eyes at that moment, she thought that maybe she had never understood him at all.

She used to be good at navigating this strange space that she and Steve shared, like a held breath or the shimmering swell of a cloud before it began to rain.

It made her head ache. She couldn't wheedle out information or eavesdrop on a conversation to sort out whatever was going on here. She realized, very quickly, that she had no experience here.

The thought sent a thrill from the soles of her feet to the top of her scalp.

"I guess not," she eventually answered. She let out a breath and smiled at him. "But I'd very much like to find out."

An answering grin lifted his lips.

A moment later Bucky strolled up, moaning about his shoelaces and the early train he had to take back to camp tomorrow morning, and slung his arms around both of their shoulders when he reached them. Alice huffed under the weight of his arm – he'd grown too, into muscle and sinew – and met Steve's suffering gaze. He rolled his eyes at her, and it didn't feel like an echo of an old memory. It felt like the start of a brand new one.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_A Friendship for the Ages,_' by Yumi Miyagi, 1989

_No biography of Steve Rogers is complete without an in-depth analysis of his long-time friendship with Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, and likewise no story about Barnes can omit Steve Rogers._

_The two met in their childhood and formed a friendship that saw them through the Great Depression, numerous spats on the playgrounds and streets of Brooklyn, and eventually through the fires of war. They would come to save each other's lives multiple times over, leading one of the most famous and most effective tactical units of the entire European campaign, until the war finally claimed them both._

_Their friendship is one which has made a mark upon the face of history, one of those famous duos which exist beyond death and time like Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Their stories are entwined together so firmly that one will never be thought of without the other by his side._

* * *

The next morning, at 7:45, Alice pushed open the narrow door underneath the sign which read in stylish font: _RATNER'S. _She smiled as she entered. You couldn't tell from the outside, but she knew that around the corner down the alley was a nondescript door which lead to a smoky staircase, which lead to a secret (or perhaps not so secret anymore) speakeasy. The very same that Bucky had taken her and Steve to for her fourteenth birthday. She supposed it was still there; Prohibition was over, which would only make a lovely bar like that all the more popular. Though wartime wasn't exactly the best time to be going out on the town.

Alice cast her eyes around the dairy restaurant, but there was only one other woman sitting at the long counter and she looked to be bordering on ninety years old. Unsurprised, Alice smiled at the server behind the counter and then sat down at one of the small tables in the back corner, facing away from the door. Ratner's was smaller than she expected, with dark wooden furniture and a low hum of conversation and clinking cutlery. It smelled like fresh bread.

A finely-dressed waiter approached Alice, and she ordered a coffee and a bagel. Just before he turned away she added: "Actually, make that two cups."

She sat and very pointedly did not fidget, and when the coffee came she sipped hers without turning around to look at the door once.

The door opened at precisely 8AM, letting in a gust of cold air and the sound of clicking footsteps. Alice caught a glimpse of a dark coat out of the corner of her eye a moment before the woman from yesterday pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. Their eyes met.

"Why," said the woman by way of greeting. Her cheeks were pinked from the cold.

Alice sipped her coffee as she slid the other steaming mug toward the woman. "You're asking a question you already know the answer to."

"Why would I do that?" She didn't touch the coffee.

"Because you're smart." Alice smiled thinly. "But I'll play along." She took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair. The woman's eyes narrowed. "I'm doing this because my mother raised me to turn the other cheek when someone was cruel to me, but to _act _when I saw injustice being done to others. She taught me that if you saw a man being kicked and you stood by, then you may as well throw another boot into his side."

Alice sat back, thinking of the men who had beat Matthias in the street that night. "I'm doing this because although Austria will always be my first home, I grew up here. In Brooklyn. Which I'm sure you know, as you'll have done your research. I'm sure you also know that I was a part of this community. That I love it. That I have friends and family here. I'm sure you know that my family was ripped away from me when my mother and stepfather were killed by someone who hated them because of who they chose to love."

Alice took a sharp breath. "I'm sure you know about my uncle, about the views he espoused and the people he chose to grow close to." She bit her lip. "I'm not here because I think that Germany is full of villains and America is full of heroes. I'm here because too many in Germany and Austria have stood by while powerful men kick others to the ground. I won't stand by any longer."

She tightened her fingers around her coffee mug and leveled her gaze at the other woman. "Let me help."

For a few moments, silence stretched between them. Alice had spoken softly, conversationally, matching the tone of the dairy restaurant around them.

The other woman's dark eyes flicked over her appraisingly. "I believe you. But I don't trust you."

"That's smart. Again." Alice quirked a brow. "I like to think that anyone who wants to protect lives can trust me, but it's foolish to trust anyone on the basis of a single conversation."

The woman rested a hand on the outside of the coffee mug Alice had ordered for her, but did not drink. Her eyes were unwavering from Alice's face. "So I take it you don't trust me."

"Not yet," Alice said simply.

"That's smart," the woman shot back. Her eyes narrowed again. "We've got no record of you entering the United States, Ms Moser."

It was the first time the woman had acknowledged that she knew Alice's name, but Alice just shrugged. "There's a war on. Identities… are not as concrete as they are in peacetime. What's your name?"

"You can call me Agent Carter." _Agent Carter _eyed Alice for another long moment. "Be outside your hotel at this time tomorrow morning. We'll discuss your future with us further then."

Alice's eyes narrowed. She shouldn't be surprised that they'd figured out where she was staying, but it made her nervous all the same. "I can't tell if you've decided to give me a chance or if there'll be a black van and a set of handcuffs waiting for me tomorrow."

Agent Carter raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps I haven't decided yet."

Alice smiled at that. "Well, whatever your decision, I'll be there. If I can't help, I may as well be in chains."

Agent Carter eyed her for another moment longer, then got up to leave without having even sipped from her coffee.

"Wait," Alice called. Carter paused beside the table and looked over with an arched eyebrow. Alice swallowed. "You were the maid."

That fine, dark eyebrow just arched further. Alice knew that look, she'd perfected it: it meant _what on earth are you talking about? _It didn't fool her.

"At Castle Kauffman. Herr Schmidt's _gathering_."

Carter slowly eyed Alice. "I hadn't thought you would remember me."

"I didn't at first. But I never forget a face." It had taken her a while to place Carter's dark, watchful eyes, but she remembered her now: she'd offered Alice a drink. Carter just arched her eyebrow again in silence. Alice fidgeted slightly. "Is… is Herr Erskine alright?"

For the first time, Carter betrayed a hint of surprise: her eyes widened incrementally.

"We only spoke once," Alice clarified, "but I heard later that he… that someone might have escaped. I was hoping it was him."

"That's classified," said Carter, and Alice burst out in a brilliant grin. Because that meant _yes_, and that meant that the kind man who she'd bonded with for barely a moment was alive and free.

She glanced down for a moment to conceal her relief, then looked up again. Carter was watching her closely. "I'll see you tomorrow, Agent Carter."

"Perhaps," she replied. Then Agent Carter turned and strode away.

* * *

Excerpt from article 'An Evening with Margaret Carter,' by Lauren Hart, 1983

_Margaret "Peggy" Carter is one of the most influential foreign-born agents of United States history, with a much-shrouded history of working within this country's intelligence system. Carter, or as she was known then, 'Agent Carter', first traveled to America during WWII as a transplant from the British counter-intelligence agency MI5. _ _She was only twenty years old when she first joined. _ _She joined the newly-created Strategic Scientific Reserve, in which capacity she worked as an adviser, field agent, recruit assessor, instructor, and analyst._

_When I asked Carter about her initial work with the SSR, she informed me that much of it remained classified. I asked what skills she brought to the table, for her to be given such a unique transfer._

_"Oh, this and that," the now sixty-two year old told me with a flap of her hand. "I started off as a code-breaker in Bletchley Park, you know, before taking on an assignment to train as a field agent. I picked things up pretty quickly."_

_"Can you tell us a little about your work during the war?" I asked._

_"Probably not," Carter returned. "But I assure you I was very impressive."_

_It was at this point that I recalled that Carter had only agreed to this interview in exchange for my newspaper releasing some documents to her agency for an ongoing investigation. _ _Margaret Carter is a whip-smart woman, perhaps more so now with experience than she was in the war, and she still protects her secrets, even the ones that have been long-declassified by the government. Openness is not her forte._

_When I asked her about the recruits she oversaw at the SSR in those war years, Carter shot me a coy look._

_"Are there any specific recruits you'd like to discuss?"_

* * *

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was quiet on a Tuesday morning, with most of the city's population busy at work or war.

It was quiet enough that Steve could hear two sets of footsteps clearly: his own and Alice's, falling in step as they strolled through the galleries. He listened to the soft inhale and exhale of her breath as they paused in front of an arching Greek alabaster statue: a rendering of an ancient bard. A moment later they turned and continued on.

He tried not to look at her too much, despite the fact that he'd much rather be doing that than looking at the centuries-old art. He caught glimpses of her out of the corner of his eye: wisps of blonde hair, a flash of green eyes, the soft darkness of her coat.

Sometimes she fell out of his line of vision and he snapped around, afraid that she'd be gone for good.

It was surreal for Steve to have Alice back. He'd had an image of her in his head for so long: distant, suffering and sad, just words in a letter. She'd occupied his thoughts every day but she was just that: a thought.

But then she arrived back into his life with warmth and a soft voice and green eyes that made his chest ache, and he didn't know what to do with her. They'd barely had a chance to be alone at first, save for that moment when Bucky had hung back to tie his shoe.

But after that first weekend Bucky had gone back to basic training (after wrapping Alice up in a bone-popping hug and murmuring something into her ear that made her scowl). Tom had gone back to school, and Alice and Steve were left with just each other for company.

It had taken days for it to properly sink in: Alice was back.

But even as Steve got used to seeing Alice physically there in front of him, he realized that she wasn't back. Not completely.

It was easy to miss: sadness that flitted across her eyes when she thought no one was looking, her silence when it came to talk of the future. The way she looked at Tom, Bucky, and Steve as if she was preserving the image of them in her mind like a photograph. She'd asked Bucky and Steve not to tell anyone that she was back. Not even Edith and Finn, who'd just gotten married.

And there was something else going on. It took Steve about a week to notice, but there were hours missing out of Alice's day. She never missed meet ups or appointments, but when he asked what she'd gotten up to while he was at work she'd shrug off the question or _lie. _He could spot her lies – couldn't explain how, which had irritated her when they were kids, but he just knew.

So he didn't push. He'd only just gotten her back, he didn't want to scare her away by asking questions she wasn't ready to answer.

More that, Steve pondered as they moved from the Greek and Roman gallery into the European sculpture and decorative arts wing. He was… distracted. Steve had confronted his feelings for Alice when he was just sixteen, and he'd known since then that if Alice asked, he would be hers in a heartbeat. Alice had been so close to asking that day when they'd nursed their colds in his apartment. Then the world had taken the choice away.

Alice strode a few paces ahead of Steve into the hall of sculptures, gazing up at a statue of a faceless woman on her knees, her arm raised as if to shield against an incoming blow.

Alice was back, Steve realized, and he didn't know what to _do. _She wasn't the same girl she'd been when she left, that was for sure, but he felt he still understood the person she'd become. She'd become somehow even more closed off, full of secrets and silences, but he could still see the same genuine, open kindness hiding under all that. He could see the same girl who used to close her eyes and smile when she sang. The same razor-sharp intelligence waited behind her eyes. He could see her thinking even as she gazed at the finely-detailed statue, as if it were a problem to be worked out.

Steve's pulse fluttered at his throat as he approached. "I don't know how good this artist could've been, he forgot to do the face."

Alice's eyes closed and her head tilted back as she laughed, and when she opened her eyes again Steve caught a glimpse of surprise – surprise that she had it within herself to laugh? Steve's heart juddered, stuttered, and then pounded.

She shook her head at him. "Guess they'll let any old rot into the museum these days." Her clear green eyes rested on him. "You know, you're funny, Steve."

His shoulders hunched. "That's not usually the first word people use to describe me."

"And yet," she said lightly as they continued through the hall, "you are. You just keep it secret."

_You keep bigger secrets_, he thought, but didn't say. He settled for rolling his eyes at her. Alice drifted closer to him as they made their way through the ancient busts and sculptures. Their elbows were almost brushing.

"You've got questions," Alice said after a minute of silence.

Steve looked up at a sculpture whose face had fallen into shadow, and didn't meet Alice's eye. "Yeah, I… yes."

He felt rather than heard her sigh. "Go on."

He took a deep breath and turned to her. He had _so many _questions: _How did you get here? What happened in Austria? What happened to __Jil__í? Why does it feel like you're not going to stay?_

But he just sighed and asked: "Are you happy?"

Her eyes went round. She hadn't expected that. "That's… a complicated question."

Steve's face shuttered and he moved to turn aside, but Alice's hand darted out to catch his arm.

"Steve." He met her gaze again. "I…" she huffed. "I'm no good at… this. But I… when I'm with you, I am. Happy." Her eyes were almost desperate, searching his own, hoping he understood. Alice so often seemed intangible, as if she was caught between two worlds, but very suddenly she became real and present. Human.

And he believed her. Alice had clearly grown unaccustomed to joy, but he knew happiness in her face when he saw it. He'd seen it when she first arrived outside his house, and he caught glimpses of it whenever they met.

Alice must have seen something in his face because she smiled softly and let go of his arm as she glanced away. The tips of her ears were red.

"What about you?"

Steve blinked stupidly. "What?"

"Are you happy?"

He thought about his life. The going-nowhere jobs that he kept getting fired from, the late nights spent drawing with only the hope of pennies in return, living alone in an apartment he could barely afford. Bucky off to war and Steve told to stay behind.

"I am," he said quietly. "When I'm with you."

The tips of Alice's ears went even redder and she couldn't resist, for an instant, an impossibly pleased smile. A moment later she ducked her head and gestured for them to keep walking. Steve followed her and tried to settle his racing heart.

_I have no idea what we're doing, _he thought. _But I like where we're going._


	28. Chapter Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought about splitting this in two. Decided it works better as a whole. Drop twice the love!

**Cornelius a Lapide, about a woman: "_H__er glance is that of the fabled basilisk, her voice is a siren's voice – with her voice she enchants, with her beauty she deprives of reason – voice and sight alike deal destruction and death_."**

* * *

The morning after Alice's meeting with Agent Carter at Ratner's, she walked out of her hotel and found a black car idling on the curb. She climbed in to see Agent Carter waiting for her in a perfectly-pressed olive military uniform.

A short drive took them to a re-purposed warehouse in Queens. At first, as Agent Carter led her through a hidden back entrance, Alice thought she was being taken into SSR headquarters, but the near-empty state of the building soon proved her wrong. Agent Carter brought her into an office up the back, empty save for a desk and two wooden chairs. Piles of dust sat in the corners and on the windowsills, and the single electric light shone dimly.

What followed over the course of that day and the next was a series of interrogations. Agent Carter asked most of the questions, but on the second day two grim-faced men in dark suits who Carter only introduced as "Agents" added to her questioning. They asked Alice everything she knew, and she told them: her acquaintances in the Austrian and German governments, her social circle, her access to high-security buildings, her underground network in Austria, her actions in France, everything she had ever done to subvert the Nazi occupation.

Alice noticed that they asked a lot of questions about her trip to Castle Kauffman and her interactions with Herr Schmidt.

Alice gave her impression of every Nazi official she had ever spoken with and everything she'd found out about their private lives. Agent Carter was ever-vigilant in her unblinking, unsurprised façade, but her hard-faced colleagues occasionally raised their eyebrows at the extent of the information Alice provided. They scribbled in their notepads as she spoke.

As the questioning progressed, Agent Carter began to speak more. When Alice told them about her visits to other countries and the people she'd met there, Carter said: "We'll have you keep your travel. But we'll have to find a way to give you more autonomy than a performance tour provides, in case we need you in a specific location at a specific time." Alice raised an eyebrow at the implication that they were ready take Alice on as a… as a _spy_, but continued on.

In this strange, question-and-answer format, Alice and Agent Carter began to set up arrangements for her return to Europe. They agreed she'd take up singing again, with an SSR handler stepping in as her new music agent now that her uncle was gone. They agreed that she ought to strengthen her connections in France to give the SSR better access there, and that the SSR would send agents into Austria to be a part of Alice's quiet network. Agent Carter told Alice which generals they wanted her to get closer to, and what specific information to look for – "Don't worry, I'll show you how to find out what you need".

They took the conversation out of the empty office. They pored over maps of Europe and flipped through files on Nazi generals. Agent Carter informed Alice that she was "woefully under-trained, but we'll fix that up in no time". Alice met very few other people who were a part of this elusive 'SSR', but from what Carter said about agents and handlers it was clear they had a wide reach.

After a few days of this back-and-forth in the nearly abandoned warehouse, Alice pulled a sheaf of papers out of her bag and set them on the table in front of Agent Carter. Carter gave her a narrow, assessing gaze.

Alice stood with her hands behind her back as Carter leafed through the papers: a hand-drawn map of an intercontinental train line the Nazis were planning on building (Alice had copied it from memory after seeing the plans in the home of a general who had invited her and her uncle for a party), a set of blueprints for a new kind of panzer tank (in a fit of fury and desperation, she'd snatched that right out of a visiting scientist's briefcase), and a series of lists and diagrams she'd drawn up: German officials posted in Austria, rumors of new construction in the Austrian mountains, suspected French civilians spying for the Nazis; anything and everything Alice could think of that she'd discovered over the past year.

Agent Carter scanned the last page and then looked up. "You trust me."

Alice inclined her head. "Am I wrong?"

"No." Carter shook her head slowly, and let out a slow breath. "No. We'll know just what to do with these." She slid the sheaf of papers into a folder and fastened it tightly. Her eyes flicked back up to Alice. "There's someone I'd like you to meet."

* * *

This time the black sedan took them to a nondescript office building in Manhattan. Carter led Alice into an elevator, and the doors dinged open on the thirtieth floor to reveal a bored-looking receptionist leaning on her elbow at a desk beside a door with a sign over it that read _Accounting_.

"Got any gum?" the receptionist drawled when she spotted the two newcomers. Alice cocked an eyebrow, but Carter didn't seem fazed.

"No, my grandmother told me I ran the risk of choking," she replied. At her even tone, Alice almost smiled. _Another code._

"More's the pity," said the receptionist with a quirk of her mouth, then pulled open a drawer at her desk and touched something. There was a _click_, and suddenly the wall to her right was moving – _oh. _A hidden door. Alice's eyes went round as the section of wall popped out with a pneumatic hiss, and then slid aside.

"You trust me," she murmured to Carter.

"Is he in?" Carter called to the receptionist as she strode toward the door.

"Yes ma'am." The receptionist slumped back onto her elbow and pulled a newspaper toward herself. "He just got back from the Brooklyn faci-"

Carter shot a warning glance and the woman shut her mouth.

Alice's mouth quirked. "You trust me a bit," she corrected.

"You don't need to know everything the SSR gets up to, Ms Homer," Carter replied over her shoulder as they strode through the hidden door. The space beyond was almost disappointing: a tiled corridor lined with offices, and what looked almost like a police bullpen at the end. As Alice followed Carter's clipping footsteps down the corridor she frowned.

"Sorry, Ms Homer?"

A pair of uniformed soldiers walked out of an office and made for the elevator without casting Carter or Alice a second glance.

"I've decided that'll be your alias while you're with us," Carter explained. "Homer."

They strode past the bullpen, which had maps on the walls and people with the look of analysts bent over desks covered in paper. The blinds were closed and the lights turned on to compensate, giving the space a warm yellow glow. Carter cleared her throat and Alice drew her eyes away. This didn't feel like the SSR's main headquarters to her, maybe just an analysis department, but it was a large show of faith to invite Alice into it.

"Homer," Alice echoed, thinking about it as she eyed the corridor ahead. "Oh, I see. Homer wrote the Odyssey, in which Odysseus comes across the-"

"Sirens," Carter said with a hint of a smile. They reached the end of the long corridor, where she tapped her knuckles on the furthest door. A gruff voice called _'What?'_ and Carter swung the door open.

Inside a cramped, yellow-lit office at a desk covered in stacks of paperwork sat a grim-faced man in a dark olive military uniform. Alice's gaze swept over his medals and insignia. _A colonel. _He looked up at the intruders to his office and a frown settled over his brow. The colonel had sturdy, serious features and his eyes were uncannily sharp as he looked from Carter to Alice.

"Carter, what have I said about bothering me while I'm in my office?"

Agent Carter closed the door once Alice had entered and drew her heels together. "Colonel Phillips, this is Homer."

"I figured," the man said gruffly. His gaze turned back to Alice and his jaw tightened. "Thought you'd be taller."

Alice felt small in the office, standing in her winter coat amongst these two in their crisp uniforms. But she just lifted her chin a little and held the colonel's gaze.

"She's not a soldier, Colonel," Carter pointed out.

"And yet you're asking me to trust her like one," Colonel Phillips said without taking his eyes off Alice. He had a brisk way of talking that kept Alice on her guard. He tipped his chin at her. "Why'd you come all the way to New York?"

"Pardon?"

His eyes narrowed. "You had your contacts in France, wouldn't it have been easier to join up with agencies in Britain? Why _us_?"

_Ah. _Alice looked into his narrowed eyes and realized he suspected her to be a plant of some kind, maybe from Herr Schmidt's science division.

She cleared her throat. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to see my childhood home again," she said. "But it's more than that. My contacts in France said that the SSR was an agency willing to take risks."

The Colonel shot her an unimpressed look. "You really want us to be taking risks with you?"

"I want you to _help me_." Alice fought not to clench her hands. "I've been working in the dark all this time trying to help, I need someone… someone to tell me which direction to turn. I know what I'm asking, I know what I'm going to become." _A double agent. _The look in Phillips' eyes shifted. "And I want to help you. It's not easy to get into Germany's inner circles – you need an ethnic German with deep-rooted connections, someone with money, who won't be out of place in the halls of power. Someone they won't see coming." Alice straightened her shoulders and her gaze bored into Colonel Phillips's. "They won't see me coming."

The uniformed man leaned back in his seat and reached up to scratch his chin, not taking his eyes off Alice. Carter stood to the side, watching them both with her usual calm poise.

Alice felt Phillips take her measure as he watched her.

Eventually, he spread his hand. "What the hell, I've heard worse ideas." His eyes flicked toward Carter. "You got what you wanted, Agent Carter, I'm greenlighting the Homer Project." Out of the corner of her eye Alice spotted Carter dip her chin in a nod with a not-quite smile on her face.

Phillips set his hands on his desk and rose to his feet, making the piles of paper shiver. "Ms Moser." Alice flinched at the use of her real name and met his eyes. "This is the one and only time we're going to acknowledge this out loud, so listen up. From this point on, you are a spy handled by the SSR."

He paused a moment, letting that sink in. Alice drew in a slow breath and didn't break eye contact.

"Because of your usual location and position we're going to have to coordinate with other agencies. That's annoying to me." Alice had no way to tell from the flat look on his face if he was attempting to be humorous. She guessed not. "And I don't trust you."

They held each other's gazes for a few moments longer. Alice could feel her heart pounding against her ribcage, though she wasn't sure why. _Isn't this what I wanted? _She supposed that having it spoken so plainly was nervewracking.

Phillips cleared his throat. "Agent Carter is in charge of your training until we're ready to send you back into the field." _The field_. Vienna, Austria – the _field._ "You're to make yourself available at her convenience, and we'll continue strategizing how to best utilize you as a resource as you train."

"Understood," Alice murmured.

Colonel Phillips's jaw tightened. "I want you to understand something else, _Homer. _If you turn out to be anything other than what you claim, the SSR will not suffer you to continue on. If we get the slightest inkling of a betrayal we won't just drop you – we'll eliminate you. This is a war for the fate of entire nations and the entire world, and we do not have the time for young, scheming women. You help us win, or you cease to be important. Do you understand?"

Alice fought not to let her eyes slide to Agent Carter. Carter might not have put it in the same way, but Alice knew she felt the same: Alice had taken another step in the game of trust and suspicion, had become a very valuable thread in the complex tapestry of the war, and her life was very much on the line. She knew what she'd signed up for.

"I understand," she replied in a softer tone than he had used. "I've taken a risk on you," she added. "Thank you for extending the same courtesy."

Phillips's gaze was iron, but she could see him measuring her words. "You're dismissed."

Alice nodded, finally breaking eye contact with the man, and turned for the door. She sensed a silence pass between Carter and Phillips before she heard Carter's clicking footsteps following her.

"And don't go telling your brother or any of your friends in Brooklyn about any of this, either," Phillips called as Alice opened the door. She flinched, but didn't look back at him. _The SSR have done their research._

Alice strode numbly through the door and fell still in the corridor beyond. Carter followed her through and closed the door.

Alice let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"He's a taskmaster," came Carter's crisp voice, followed by a softer tone: "But he's not a bully."

Alice turned to her with raised eyebrows.

Carter's face softened. "He's on board with taking a chance on you, but he wanted to make sure you knew what was at stake."

Alice drew herself up. "I've been living under Nazi rule for three years, Agent Carter." Her eyes flashed. "I know what's at stake."

Carter nodded slowly, her eyes roving over Alice's face. "Yes, I believe you do." She cleared her throat. "Let's get started."

* * *

Laura Phillips's speech at the Colonel Chester Phillips Forty-Year Memorial Service, 2010

_"My grandfather could be a real monster sometimes. He was hard-headed, blunt, and often struggled to break away from his more traditional ideas. In his personal life, for example, he struggled with the idea of his daughter, my mother, becoming a single mother. But, and this was one of the wonderful things about him, he did have an open mind in the end. He knew he wasn't always right. He supported my mother, and became the strongest and most inspiring male influence in my life._

_This translated to his career, I believe. My grandfather's rigid determination was just what the Army and the SSR needed at that crucial moment in the war: decisive action and bold choices. But it was his openness, no matter how reluctant, that I believe made him a truly extraordinary commander. He made decisions and allowed unique ideas to go ahead that changed the face of the war and the world. It allowed him to become one of the three co-founders of S.H.I.E.L.D, which has become one of this country's most important defenses against unusual threats._

_When, nearly twenty years after the founding of S.H.I.E.L.D., Colonel Phillips learned that his only granddaughter was signing up to become an agent, he threw what I believe to be one of the most enormous fits of his lifetime. But after a few weeks passed, granddad came and pulled me out of basic training. I was furious, thought he was going to try and convince me to go home like he had been for weeks. But he just put his hand on my shoulder and said 'I wasn't angry because I thought you couldn't do it, Laura. I was scared because I knew that you could. Now get back out there and give 'em hell.'_

_Granddad might not have been able to judge a person's potential accurately when he first met them, but he sure as hell paid attention when someone proved him wrong."_

* * *

Alice began her training that day. She and Carter drove back to the warehouse complex in Queens, and Carter put her to work.

She started with physical training: running laps around the warehouse, thundering up and down stairs, lifting herself over fences and balustrades. About an hour in, Alice asked for a change of clothes. Carter pursed her lips as she looked down from an upper level of the warehouse and replied: "You won't have time for a change of clothes when you need these skills. Keep going." Alice let out a sigh, wiped her sweaty forehead and went right back to running around in her skirt and pumps.

For a couple of days all Alice did was run, jump, climb and sweat under Carter's steely-eyed instruction, and then spent her free time with Tom and Steve. A few days into her training, after Carter had blessedly cut down on the exercise schedule to start teaching Alice fieldcraft and orienteering, Steve and Alice went to go see a film.

Steve seemed excited about Alice finally seeing a non-censored movie, but when they walked into the warm dark of the theater Alice wasn't completely sure what the name of the film even was. She and Steve took their seats, and if it wasn't for the box of popcorn between them their legs would be pressed against one another. The side of Alice's body facing Steve prickled. When the lights dimmed and the audience fell silent, the darkness vibrated with possibility.

Alice didn't notice much of the film. On the way home, Steve made her laugh so hard that he had to take her elbow to keep her from running into a light post.

When Alice fell into her hotel bed she finally felt the tiredness and soreness in her limbs, and the lessons about map reading and using terrain to hide oneself began to swirl through her brain again. For a few blessed hours, it had all disappeared. Alice smiled to herself and rolled to press her face into the pillow, thinking of Steve's quiet humor and brilliant laugh, and most of all, the way that he had been looking at her tonight. As if she was the only person in the universe.

* * *

Carter occasionally brought in other agents to assist with Alice's training, but more often than not it was just the two of them. Alice wondered if this lack of resources was a sign that the SSR weren't putting much faith in her, but she suspected they just wanted as few people as possible to know about her. And, Alice reflected as Carter showed her how to use natural terrain as cover against small arms fire, they could not have given her a better instructor.

Carter was an unknown quantity at first, but it was becoming clear to Alice that in many ways they were very similar. Carter was blunter than her, a little more down to earth, with a wealth of knowledge about war and spycraft. Carter was elegant, as Alice had attempted to portray herself in public since childhood, but Alice had always had swans in mind when she practiced her elegance. Carter reminded Alice of a panther.

Alice got used to spending her days in the warehouse alone with Carter. So when the black sedan began driving in the opposite direction one morning, she looked out of the corner of her eye at Carter.

"Another SSR facility?" she murmured.

"Not quite," Carter replied.

The buildings sliding past the windows shrank and grew farther apart, until they were well and truly out of the city. The road grew bumps and potholes, jarring the mostly-silent passengers. They'd been driving for over an hour. They drove past houses and fields laden with snow. Alice knew better than to ask questions when Carter had that steely, poised look in her eye. Agent Carter was a woman who chose her words carefully and used them sparingly. Alice sensed a test coming.

So when the car pulled over on the side of a dirt road running through lonely farmland, Alice wasn't surprised. But she was nervous.

"Get out of the car, if you please," Carter instructed.

Alice opened the door and stepped out. Carter didn't follow.

"Today will be a feat of imagination." Carter's dark eyes met Alice's. "Your task is to imagine that every person you come across is a potential Nazi. Danger lurks down every roadway and behind every house. Nowhere is safe."

Alice inclined her head, despite the sudden increase in her heartrate. She had a feeling she wasn't going to like this.

"Excellent. Under these conditions, your task is to make it back to Manhattan without anyone seeing or questioning you. If you are questioned, maintain a cover and get away as quickly as possible. Go to the SSR offices in Manhattan, not the warehouse. I trust you remember where those are."

Alice's mind whirled. She'd only been there once, over a week ago, when she met Colonel Phillips. Pleas gathered at the tip of her tongue: _I've never been so far out of the city before, I've got no idea where I am. I'm wearing heels, stockings, a coat and a dress. It's February in New York, I'm already freezing._ But she swallowed the words and offered Carter nothing but a cautious nod.

"Wonderful," Carter replied. "See you soon, Agent Homer." She leaned across the back seat, slammed the door shut, and the driver took off with a _crunch _of tires on dirt.

Alice watched the car disappear into the distance and tried not to be furious.

* * *

Excerpt from "_Training SOE Saboeteurs in World War Two_" by Bernie Ross, BBC

_There was a four-stage plan in the training of prospective agents of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE)... those who passed the preliminary stage were sent to paramilitary schools, known as the group A schools._

_..._

_The courses lasted at first for three weeks but were later increased to five weeks. They included physical training, silent killing, weapons handling, demolition, map reading, compass work, field craft, elementary Morse, and raid tactics._

_..._

_The training began with a hard slog... both men and women had to complete the course, and they would be equally tired, aching and covered in bruises having crawled on their bellies and trekked up mountains._

* * *

By the time Alice got back to Manhattan in the middle of the next day she was wearing stolen overalls, covered in bruises, and had scorched her forearm on the exhaust pipe of the truck she'd stowed away on into the city, but no one had noticed her. Not the farmers whose land she had trespassed through on her way to a major transit line, not customers at the town grocery store she'd stolen bread from. Not even the doorman at the SSR office building in Manhattan.

She caught the elevator up to the thirtieth floor and the minute the receptionist at the desk – the same one as before – saw her she asked in a surprisingly even tone: "Got any gum?"

Alice let out a sigh and pushed her grimy hair out of her face, trying to remember word-for-word what Carter had said last week. "No. My grandmother told me I ran the risk of choking." She hoped the code hadn't changed.

But the receptionist just shot her a tight smile, flicked her eyes over her ragged appearance, and said: "Go on in, honey." She hit the button in her desk drawer and the hidden door in the wall slid open. "Third door on your right."

Alice was tempted to sag to the ground and weep with relief, but eventually convinced herself to stride into the SSR headquarters and find the right office. It was nearly empty inside. When she knocked on the third door on the right she glanced over her shoulder to see that she'd tracked a trail of dirt inside.

"Enter," came Carter's distinctive voice.

Alice pushed open the door and walked inside. Carter sat at a desk similar to Colonel Phillips' with an open file before her and a biro in her hand. She looked up and ran her dark eyes over Alice.

"I made it," Alice said, because a few seconds of silence had passed and her legs were aching.

Carter raised an eyebrow. "Were you noticed? Questioned?"

"I haven't spoken to anyone since you, yesterday morning."

Those dark eyes flicked over her once more. "Are you injured?"

Alice hurt all over, but she knew it was nothing that wouldn't fade with a good night's sleep and a bath. "No."

"Excellent." Carter nodded at the chair across from her desk. "Take a seat, Agent Homer. I've just called for tea and it should be here in a moment. I'd like an immediate report of your movements and observations."

Alice fought back a sigh as she strode forward and sank into the seat. She should have known better to think this would all be over once she arrived back, though the tea was a nice touch. She rubbed the heel of her palm into her forehead, centering her thoughts, and then looked up to meet Carter's eyes.

"Start with your first thoughts after being dropped off," Carter stated, her pen ready over her file – which, Alice realized, was titled _HOMER_.

Alice took in a deep breath and began.

* * *

Alice got back to her hotel that evening to find Steve arguing with the clerk at the front desk. His hair was mussed and his voice threaded with tension as he spoke to the increasingly irritated clerk. For a moment the sight of him froze Alice in her tracks: the warm lobby light gleaming in his hair, the slight flush to his cheeks, the determined set of his jaw.

"Steve," she breathed, suddenly glad that Carter had given her a change of clothes back at the SSR offices.

Steve whirled around and his whole expression loosened at seeing her. "Alice!" He abandoned the clerk (who rolled his eyes and went back to his files), and jogged across the empty lobby towards her. Alice, bone tired and startled into stillness at the sight of him, just stared as he ran up to her and put his hands on her arms, looking into her face.

"Where have you been?" he asked frantically. "Are you okay? I've been looking for you all day, but the hotel staff wouldn't tell me if you've been in or not-"

"I'm okay, I promise," she cut in. They'd planned to catch up last night, and Alice had been planning to apologize to him today, but she hadn't expected _this_. She'd almost forgotten how it felt to have people worry for her like this. "I'm sorry I didn't come yesterday, I" – half a second to think – "I went to Mom's grave and I… I guess I got distracted. I'm sorry."

She wasn't sure if he noticed the lie or not. She hoped he didn't, she felt awful enough for using her mom's grave as an excuse. She _had _visited her mom's and Matthias's graves, but still. Either way, Steve's face did something complicated and deep that then turned into him pulling her into his arms. Alice fought the hiss that threatened to escape when he jostled her bruises, but then she registered _warm, Steve, safe _and let out a sigh that jellied her bones and had her sinking into his arms.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Steve asked, his voice muffled in her hair.

Alice nodded, jostling his head slightly. "I promise."

* * *

The next day, Carter moved on to communications. She brought Alice to a workshop full of radios and transmitters, and arched an eyebrow at Alice's look of glee.

"I suppose you've some experience with radios, given your experience with your network in Austria."

Alice nodded slowly as she ran her fingers over a beautiful wooden Zenith radio. "I've been pulling radios apart since I was a kid."

Carter's lip quirked. "How good are you at putting them back together?"

"Try me."

They spent the day in the workshop discussing frequencies, masking communications in static, hiding messages in radio broadcasts, and using innocuous telegrams to transmit coordinates. In the afternoon, Carter slid a type-written page of gibberish across the table towards Alice.

"Read this."

Alice flicked her gaze over the page and then raised an eyebrow. "A Vigenere cipher? You might have tried to make it difficult, at least." All she'd have to do was guess the length of the encryption key, and then use the logic that _E _was the most common letter in the English alphabet to begin unraveling the cipher.

Carter laughed. "Confident words, Agent Homer. Give that cipher a try and then get back to me."

Alice let out a put upon sigh, then picked up a pencil and bent over the paper. Within ten minutes she had figured out the five-letter key (_ROUGE_), and all that was left was to go through the paper by hand to decrypt it. It was tedious work, but Alice had always found that decryption calmed her mind. She hesitated a moment while decrypting before realizing that the message was written in French. A clever misdirection.

Carter walked in and out of the workshop as Alice scribbled, occasionally glancing over her shoulder with an unreadable look.

The translated message emerged: _CONGRATULATIONS HOMER. IF YOU HAVE TRANSLATED THIS WITHOUT ASSISTANCE, YOU HAVE AN ACCEPTABLE WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF CIPHERS. CRAFT A REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE AND ENCRYPT IT USING THE SAME KEY._

The corner of her mouth ticked up and she began encrypting a reply.

When she handed her completed reply to Carter, the other woman raised an eyebrow as she scanned it. "You've been trained?"

"Self-taught. From childhood."

"Whatever for?"

Alice shrugged. "I liked puzzles."

Carter laid the paper back on the desk. "There's puzzles, and then there's decryption."

"All the same to me."

Carter tapped her finger against the solved message, and the encrypted reply. She could see from the notes that Alice's mind was precise, honed to find the smallest variations in ciphers to pull them apart. She had a clear knowledge of the mathematical principles that made codes work.

"You know," she reflected, "We could use you at Bletchley Park."

Alice cocked an eyebrow. "Is that all you could use me for?"

Carter sighed. "I suppose you're better placed as a double agent. At least I won't have to spend too long training you in the communications and coding side of things."

Alice propped her chin in her hand and looked up at her mentor. "So you were at Bletchley, then."

Carter eyed her flatly. "Did I say that?"

Alice fought off a smile. "What do you do in the SSR then, that you have all this time to train me?"

"I'm a consultant," Carter explained. "I'm available for missions, training, recruit assessment, anything."

"And what, the SSR is just… hanging out in New York? Why aren't you all over in Europe?"

"There's work to be done here," Carter said shortly. "And if you have time to be asking nosy questions, you have time to be training. Let's go learn how to get past a lock you don't have the key for."

Alice sprang to her feet and beamed eagerly at Carter. The other woman shot her a narrow-eyed glance and then strode out of the room.

* * *

That evening Alice and Steve caught the train to Harlem, where Tom had invited them to a family dance hall. They kept to the edges of the hall, as they had as children, and watched kids and adults spin across the dance floor. Tom danced with no less than _six_ girls, which had Alice raising her eyebrows, but she supposed he'd inherited Matthias's charm.

"Bucky's a bad influence on him. I hope he'll find _one _person to use all that charm on one day," Alice said wryly to Steve, whose laugh reverberated beside her.

"Maybe he's already found her," Steve replied, nodding his head at Tom as he whirled a girl with tight ringlets across the floor. Alice let out a _hmm._

The girl with the ringlets turned out to be the dance hall owner's daughter, and Alice had only turned away a moment before finding out that Tom had somehow talked his way onto the stage with the band. The band had paused to sip from their glasses of water, laughing at the frizz-haired boy cracking jokes in their midst. Alice's mouth dropped open, and then snapped firmly shut when Tom beckoned to her from the stage. "_Come up here!_" he mouthed.

Alice shook her head. The last thing she needed was people recognizing her. Though this wasn't Austria, and it wasn't often that pictures of her made it across the sea…

"Go on," came Steve's voice from beside her. She glanced over to see him nodding at her. "It'd be just like old times. I haven't heard you sing in…" his face went somber. "Years."

_Well_, Alice thought to herself as her chest ached. _I guess I'm going up there._

"This is all your fault," she murmured to Steve, and caught the beginning of his grin before she whirled on her heel and marched across the hall, up the stage stairs, and to her brother's side.

"Yes!" he crowed, white-toothed and sweaty, then beckoned to the band. "Come on, fellas, let's have a good one!"

The pianist rolled his eyes, but then lowered his fingers to the keys and rolled out the first few chords to _They Can't Black Out The Moon._

Alice contained her sigh. _A war song. Just what I need._ But then Tom nudged her to the other microphone, and there were expectant faces below her, and the vocal cue came in.

"_I'm not afraid of the dark,_" she began, and Tom chimed in with the reply:

"_Are you?_"

The sound of his not-quite-deep voice brought a smile to her lips, and she looked at him out of the corner of her eye as they rolled through the first verse. It was a strange, playful song for all that it was about air raid blackouts, and when people in the crowd below began to dance and sing along Alice beamed.

"_Who cares if we're without a light_," Alice sang to Tom's harmony, "_they can't black out the moon._"

As Alice sang "_I see you smiling in the cigarette glow, but the picture fades too soon,_" she glanced across the crowd to where she'd left Steve. He was dimly lit at the bar, and hunched over, but Alice soon made out the pen in his hand and the napkin he was sketching on, occasionally shooting glances up at the stage. When she caught his gaze, he grinned.

"_But I see all I want to know, they can't black out the moon._"

Alice and Tom sang their way through the rest of the tune, weaving in and out of each other's voices and taking laughing gasps between lyrics. When they reached the final line of the chorus the pianist ended on a high riff, and when the song faded the audience burst into applause.

"Thank you Harlem!" called Tom. Alice laughed at him, then jerked her thumb over her shoulder and the two of them clattered down the stairs into the crowd.

"You are a _clown_," Alice laughed at her brother. She felt sweaty, and warm, and her hair was stuck to her face.

"And _you_ ought to have more fun when you're singing," he countered. Alice couldn't really argue with that, so she let him lead her back to the bar and Steve.

Steve climbed off his stool when they approached to give them a round of applause. Tom bowed deeply, but Alice just laughed at them both and took her seat again. Steve's napkin sketch lay on the bar counter.

He'd gotten better since she'd last seen one of his sketches. She'd seen his progression in the drawings he included in his letters, but it was different seeing a sketch with the ink still wet and the paper still warm from his hand. He'd included a startling amount of detail: the way Alice and Tom seemed illuminated on the sketched-out stage, the matching grins on their faces and Tom's fingers curled around the microphone stand. He'd snatched the moment as it was happening and laid it down on paper, and it made Alice strangely breathless.

Steve sat down beside her and his arm pressed against hers. "Seems musical talent runs in the family."

"_This_ is talent," Alice replied, laying a fingertip on a corner of the napkin. She didn't want to touch it for fear she'd ruin it. "It's beautiful, Steve."

Steve didn't reply, but she could feel him looking at her. She stared down at the napkin, memorizing the lines and trying to see herself through Steve's eyes. The woman on that stage was beautiful, no doubt, a harmony to the cheeky young man to her left. More than that: the woman on the napkin was _happy._ Overflowing with it. Alice hadn't realized it until she saw the proof on paper.

She glanced up to see Tom at the bar, shaking his head.

"What?" she asked.

Tom just shot her an exasperated glance, and then whirled away into the crowd.

* * *

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_What many of us forget about the extraordinary Captain of World War II is that he was a skilled artist. There is some evidence of his having worked on commission in Brooklyn, for advertisements and the like, though he was not often credited for his work. What survives today are some of his sketchbooks and childhood drawings, kindly donated by the Barnes family and the S.H.I.E.L.D. archives. Rogers had an interest in comic styles, as well as more detailed character studies and landscapes. These artworks are available now on our website for a unique interactive experience, complete with accompanying writing samples from Captain Rogers and a thirty-minute oral history gallery with contributions from Peggy Carter, Rebecca Barnes, and archival recordings of Howard Stark and the Howling Commandos._

* * *

As her training progressed, Alice got the sense that Carter was testing her psychologically. She put Alice in stressful situations without warning or assistance: once, she locked her into a cold dark room with only a glimpse at the pile of items inside, and waited outside as Alice felt her way around to the lock, manipulated the lock back using the protractor she'd spotted, and pushed her way to freedom.

Alice had been ready to craft some ingenious revenge for Carter right up until she burst out of the room, her hair wild around her face and her fingers like numb logs, to see Carter's pleased, proud smile.

As they worked through duller subjects such as learning basic radio signals, Carter would propose scenarios for Alice.

"There's a folio of vital information you need to get back to friendly eyes, but you're trapped in a room with no windows and the Gestapo are on the other side of the door, trying to break in. What do you do?"

"You're at a drop with an ally when you realize that the ally is compromised. What do you do?"

It was unnerving, and frightening, but Alice had been living that reality for years now. She answered as best as she could, and Carter talked her through her choices.

Outside her training, Alice and Steve were in a whirlwind. They'd been so strangely _intimate _for years, as childhood friends and through their letters, that sometimes Alice forgot that they'd only ever kissed once, through tears at her mother's funeral. And now that she'd returned they'd just melted into each other's lives as if there'd been no distance or years separating them.

They went on dates nearly every other day, though neither of them acknowledged that that was what they were doing. They walked around Brooklyn at night, rubbing their hands in the cold and talking for hours. On one of these nights, Alice reached out to take Steve's hand. It was small and cold in the night air, but it felt like she'd just grasped a lifeline or a burning beacon. Steve returned her grasp tentatively, and as they continued to walk their entwined fingers grew warm against the cold.

When she wasn't with Steve or Carter, Alice followed the war in the papers and on the radio. From what she could tell, the Nazis were spreading ever further. Even in Brooklyn the papers weren't optimistic about the Allies' chances, despite US forces finally landing in Britain. Alice itched to get back, but then she'd sit down at a table with Steve and it all melted away. He was dangerous.

On an empty field outside Brooklyn, Carter started training Alice in demolitions. Shortly afterwards they began combat training: they started with non-artillery weapons. Carter pointed out on Alice's body the best places to stab a man to ensure instant death (her cold fingertip against Alice's ribs felt startlingly like the sharp point of a knife), how to use the contents of a standard office desk to maim, kill, and restrain, and how to conceal a weapon under an evening gown.

Alice didn't mind this training, though the idea of killing a man (however frankly Carter put it) made her feel queasy. It was when Carter brought out a parachute pack and began explaining each component that Alice balked.

She was fine at first: she learned each part of the parachute pack and absorbed the safety briefings, filing mental notes alongside everything else she'd learned. "You'll need to know how to do a stealth drop if we ever need to send you into territory you can't get into through legitimate means." But then Carter had the driver take them out to an airfield attached to a New Jersey military base, and Alice's stomach dropped. She'd never flown before.

She didn't say a word. She followed Carter onto a tiny biplane with a pilot who didn't so much as look over his shoulder at them, and gripped her seat with white knuckles as they took off. The plane terrified her, with its bumps and judders and how it made her teeth rattle in her skull and her stomach swoop with every pocket of turbulence.

When they glided over the bare farm field it was almost a relief to dive out of the metal contraption. Alice screamed for the 15 seconds it took for her to land (she had to train to jump at low heights to avoid radar detection), and despite her training still stumbled and fell when her jelly-legs connected with the grass below. She hastily bundled up her chute with shaking fingers, buried it as per her training, and jogged out of the field.

When giving her report back at the warehouse, Alice didn't admit to her terror. Carter would just make her do it again.

The next day, Carter took her to a shooting range. It was part of another SSR installation, if the suited men with the look of agents walking down the corridor outside were any indication. It was a narrow, long room with a firing range and armory, lit by bright yellow lights. Alice listened attentively as Carter took her through the array of artillery on the wall; from pistols to submachine guns.

After an hour of discussing each weapon, Carter had Alice take down a Luger P08 ("since that's what the Nazis will be carrying") and approach the range. Alice held the gun pointed downward, the way Carter had demonstrated for her, as Carter set up a target (not a piece of paper, like Alice had expected, but a full-size mannequin on a butcher's hook) and talked her through firing discipline.

"We'll practice the usual firing stance today, but in the field you likely won't have time for that. Tomorrow I'll teach you how to fire from your hip – far more discreet. When you discharge a weapon, be sure to fire not one but _two _shots, to be sure of your target."

Alice nodded mutely, trying to get used to the feeling of the cold metal in her hands.

Carter opened her mouth to deliver another instruction when the door opened, letting in a spill of golden light and three nicely-suited men. They were laughing as they entered, and when they looked up to see Agent Carter standing a few paces away from the armed Alice, their eyebrows lifted. Their smiles became more lopsided, colder.

"Gentlemen," Carter acknowledged, then turned back to Alice. "As I was saying, your main goal is to quickly and efficiently remove a target, then remove yourself from the area. For now we'll focus on hitting the target."

The men by the entrance had filtered in, hands in their pockets. The tallest one, a man with silky blonde hair and a grey tie, shot a smile Alice's way.

"You sure you're alright there, Agent Carter?"

Alice saw Carter's eyes roll before she turned to face the men again. "We're quite alright, thank you Agent Smith."

He spread his hands with a white-toothed smile. "Just hoping your friend there gets all the training she needs, that's all. Wouldn't want any shots going astray."

Alice thought fondly about where she'd like her shots to go.

Carter did not visibly react. "I'm sure-"

Agent Smith leaned over to address Alice. "That's a mighty large caliber for a lady, wouldn't want the kickback hurting you." Alice kept her weapon in the 'safe' position, blank-faced. It was a _handgun_, not a cannon. The man jerked his head at the rack of weapons. "Want to try something a little more suitable, miss?"

"Agent," Carter corrected, her voice crisp.

Without speaking a word Alice swiveled back to her target, raised the pistol, sighted, and let loose. She made sure to keep her feet steady and grip firm, so as not to let the kickback even ruffle her, and kept both eyes open as she emptied her magazine. The gunshots were a violent shock to the relative hush of the range. When she'd spent each bullet she disassembled the pistol, set it down and shadowed her eyes to get a look at the target.

She could tell even from where she stood that she'd hit the target's chest every time. Not an exact bullseye, but if that target were a man he'd have breathed his last.

Alice turned to face Carter and the men with a calm face. They stared at her with varying degrees of shock written across their faces.

She made sure to address her question to Carter directly, cocking her head: "Should I try something more suitable?"

Carter didn't smile, but her hawk-eyed expression _radiated _delight. She turned to the men. "Gentlemen?"

Shock turned to embarrassment, and Agent Smith muttered "We'll be getting out of your way. Good show, ladies." The three men turned tail and went back the way they came.

When the door swung shut, Carter turned on her heel and strode back toward Alice. She was normally so hard to read, but Alice could now see the other woman hiding a laugh. For a few moments, silence filled the range. Alice's ears rang from the gunshots.

Finally, with her eyes on the still-swinging target, Carter spoke. "You didn't tell me you could shoot."

"I was about to. My old priest taught me on Saturdays."

Carter cocked an eyebrow. "I don't remember that part of religious services."

Alice shrugged. "We do things differently in Brooklyn."

"I'm beginning to see that." Carter finally did smile at that, and she gestured to the dismantled gun. "Again."

* * *

That evening in her hotel room after having dinner with Steve at a diner, Alice got a call from the front desk.

"You've got a call from a Private James Buchanan Barnes, miss-"

"Oh! Put him through, please."

A moment later the line clicked, whirred, and then Bucky's familiar drawl flowed through: "'Evening, troublemaker. Is Brooklyn still standing?"

"I make no promises," Alice smiled as she leaned back in her chair.

Alice and Bucky talked for hours. Bucky bitched about his training (as much as he was allowed to), and Alice told him about Brooklyn and what she and Steve had been up to. She was startled at how similar Bucky's training was to hers – he moaned about his taskmaster commanders, about having to shut up and do as he was told, about the slogs over fields carrying heavy equipment, and the do-or-die attitude. She couldn't commiserate with him though, so she just teased him about his complaints to make him laugh.

He changed topics abruptly. "Give that idiot a hug for me, Al."

She smiled at the phone. "I know what you're doing."

"What am I doing?" he said innocently. "Just want the guy to get some affection, that's all."

"Mmhm."

"And, y'know, while you're at it, if you felt like layin' one on him-"

Without a word of warning Alice hung up on him, a smile still curling her lips.

At an Army camp a state away, Bucky laughed into the night air when the operator informed him that the call had been dropped. "_Cold_, Alice," he laughed. He'd expect nothing less.

* * *

After weapons training came hand-to-hand combat back at the abandoned warehouse. Carter, in her typical fashion, was brutally honest about it all. After running through some basic self defense techniques, which mostly involved Carter trying to strangle Alice while Alice fended her off, Carter said:

"If it comes to a fight, we're not banking on you surviving for long. I'm going to teach you how to kill fast, and hard. Ready?"

"Yes," Alice said, because there was no other acceptable answer.

Carter nodded briskly, then raised her hands into a boxing position. Alice imitated her, eyes focused. She recalled what she'd learned from Bucky and Steve years ago: _chest forward, push off the back foot. Hands up. _"Good. You're not strong, or at least nowhere near as strong as your likely opponent, so don't waste time beating your fists against them. You need a single, focused strike to a specific point." She launched forward and Alice dodged to the side; but Carter slid right past Alice and slammed the edge of her hand down on the back of her right upper arm.

Alice yelped and skidded away, but couldn't bring up her guard again because her right arm had gone strangely numb and tingly, like pins and needles. Thankfully, Carter ceased her attack.

"Ow," Alice said, rubbing her arm to regain some feeling. "I guess that's part of the lesson?"

"A strong strike to that point will numb your enemy's arm long enough for you to kill them, or flee. If you hit hard enough, it could cause a heart attack."

Alice's hand on her arm stilled. "How did you know it wouldn't cause a heart attack in _me_?"

Carter flapped a hand at her. "You're young, healthy, it's very unlikely. Besides, I didn't hit you very hard."

Alice's arm was still numb. "Okay…"

Carter stepped back into Alice's space and tapped her chest, just above her abdomen and just below her ribcage. "No need to look so scared. _This _is called your solar plexus. A hard strike here will wind your enemy and send a shock to their heart. A strong enough blow can kill."

Her finger moved up to Alice's throat just above her collarbone.

"I know this one," Alice said, feeling her skin prickle under Carter's red-painted nail. "Punch it and they can't breathe."

Carter nodded but didn't take her eyes off Alice's face or her finger off her throat. "If you hit it hard enough you can crush the cartilage of the throat, and your enemy will die of asphyxiation."

"Oh."

The finger moved up to the corner of Alice's jaw and pushed slightly against the bundle of nerves and muscles there. "A strike here will cause head pain, stomach trouble, disorientation, and hopefully unconsciousness. If you hit it hard enough-"

"It can kill," Alice finished. Her skin crawled, but she knew she wouldn't forget a word of this.

"Good. The head is full of weak points. If you don't have any weapons, your hands can be just as deadly. Use the hard edge bones of your hands." Carter demonstrated by bringing the edge of her hand against Alice's temple, barely touching. "The skull is thinnest at your temple, and it covers a major artery in the head – the Maoris of the Pacific once made weapons specifically designed to crush this part of the skull. Follow their example. That's the strike I'd go for if I only had one chance. And lastly…" Carter stepped behind Alice to drop her fist gently on the crown of her head. "A good solid whack here will deliver a nice concussion."

Alice nodded, and Carter took a pace away to give her her space back. Alice swiveled to face her.

"Have you ever had to use any of this?"

Carter's eyes shadowed. "Yes."

Alice swallowed. "Did it work?"

"Yes."

"Good." She clenched her jaw. "I've… had a few close calls. Knowing how to… yes. Good." She nodded firmly, trying not to think about the fact that knowing all this surely must change a person. She'd already changed so much, nearly beyond recognition, what was one more terrible thing?

Carter gestured to the desk at the other end of the room, and they both strode over to sit down and sip from the water glasses there. For a few long minutes nothing was said. Alice listened to the soft whisper of the wind outside the warehouse, and the steady sound of Carter's breathing, and her own heel tapping against the floor.

When she leaned back in her chair, she realized Carter was watching her. She had a strange look on her face – not displeased, or measuring, but… solemn.

"Alice," Carter began, and Alice instantly straightened. Carter never called her by her first name, only ever 'Agent Homer', or occasionally when they were sure they were alone, 'Moser'. "I need to make something very clear to you, as soon as possible."

"Alright," Alice murmured.

Carter's eyes were dark and serious. "If your cover is broken and you cannot escape, it is your duty to give up your life before allowing yourself to be captured."

Alice let out a long, slow breath. She'd known this was coming, but having it spoken aloud still made her heart pound.

Carter continued: "This is to ensure that our tactical secrets are not uncovered, and that our mission is not compromised. Everyone breaks at some point or another under torture, and if you break you will put dozens of fellow spies, resistance members and allies at risk. Do you understand?"

Alice's eyes burned. "I do."

Carter eyed her closely; measuring, assessing. But there was feeling in her gaze as well. "Thank you," she eventually murmured. "Now I understand that this is morbid, but I must train you in this. I'm going to teach you how to kill yourself."

* * *

Leslie Ferndadez, SOE Agent Instructor:

_During training we attempted to prepare them physically, building up their stamina by hikes through rough countryside. All were taught close combat, which gave them confidence even if most were not very good at it. These girls weren't commando material. They didn't have the physique though some had tremendous mental stamina._

_You would not expect well brought up girls to go up behind someone and slit their throats, though if they were grappled, there were several particularly nasty little tricks that we handed on, given us by the Shanghai police._

_..._

_There was a tendency in SOE at the beginning to dismiss the potential of young women but it increasingly became evident that survival did not just require physical toughness but the ability to live a cover story - which women could excel at._

* * *

Alice was sitting on the stoop outside Steve's building when he returned home from work.

Carter had been kind about it, but after a long afternoon of learning how to take her own life Alice felt bone-tired and frustratingly weepy. The idea of returning to her sterile, cookie-cutter hotel room made her throat close up, so she'd gotten on the train bound for Steve's.

She spotted him before he noticed her. He trudged down the sidewalk, his jacket and trousers crumpled and his hair falling in his eyes. He looked tired. But then he looked up and his pale blue eyes settled on her and his face seemed to light up within.

"Alice!" he called, already smiling.

Alice's heart stuttered at the sudden change in his whole bearing, at the quirk of his lips and the genuine joy in his eyes. _All for me?_

Steve seemed to notice her somber mood because his grin faded and he hurried his steps toward her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Alice sighed. _Nothing I can tell you. _"Do you mind… can I…?" She looked up at the building.

"Of course!" Steve said, the perk back in his voice. "Come on up."

Alice asked Steve about his day as they walked up the stairs to his apartment, feeling a little guilty for not listening to the details but instead focusing on his voice. He unlocked the door, ushered her in, took her coat, and let her drop onto his couch as he went to boil the kettle on the stove.

Alice closed her eyes and let out a long breath. This room – this whole place – felt like _safety_, like being warm and normal. She didn't feel like _Die Sirene _or Agent Homer here. The sound of Steve clinking around in the kitchen very suddenly made her want to cry, and she wasn't sure why.

When he came back into the living room he sat on the couch beside her, his hands on his knees and his eyes concerned. Alice looked at him and _wanted_.

She let out a breath. "I don't want to scare you."

His expression warmed. "I told you once before, Alice. I ain't scared of you."

Alice's breath shivered in her chest and a smile crept up her lips. She wanted to protest: _you don't know what I've done or who I'm becoming, _but it didn't matter, because Steve had always understood everything she tried to hide. And fear had never stopped Steve Rogers before.

For a few long moments they sat in silence as the fear leached out of Alice's gut. She gradually attuned to a new feeling: _warmth_. It lit her up from within, sparked by the trust in Steve's eyes and his nearness on the couch. She found herself leaning against the couch cushions, watching him. He had a furrow in his brow.

Steve cleared his throat. "You know, I've… I've thought a lot about what happened." His hands flexed on his knees. "Before you left, I mean." His eyes flickered to the patch of carpet between the couch and the armchair, where once upon a time two flu-ridden teenagers had sat on the floor and talked about kissing.

Alice's sobriety lifted a little at his evident nerves, and her eyes glinted. "To what are you referring?"

His ears burned. "Alice."

She made an _ah _sound. "Oh, you mean when we-" she broke off because he'd leaned in closer, eyes darting across her face and then meeting her eyes, as if checking for something. The teasing glint in Alice's eyes softened. She swayed in closer and smiled.

Steve reached up with a slightly trembling hand and touched her cheek. His fingers were cold but they set her skin alight. "Is this… is it alright-"

"Yes," she interrupted, suddenly intent.

She told herself: _kiss him. _But she didn't. Because it was Steve, brave Steve Rogers, who looked into her eyes as if he'd decided on something then slowly, gently, reached up to hold her other cheek, and pressed his lips against hers. He was there just a moment before he went to pull away, but then Alice grabbed him – his shoulder, the back of his head – and deepened the kiss. He took in a surprised breath through his nose but stopped pulling back. He leaned into her, his lips moving against hers and _oh, _that was nice.

Alice thought of hundreds of letters and hundreds of miles and hours and her head spun with it all, that she was able to do this and the world hadn't ended. The war and Germany and Austria and all the people she knew dissolved away.

Steve's thumb stroked across the shell of her ear and then down her jaw, as if tracing out her edges.

When Alice pulled away her heart was pounding.

She opened her mouth to say _Steve Rogers, I think I'm in love with you, _but he just grinned and leaned in to kiss her again, and she had no objection to that at all.

When the boiling kettle began to shriek in the kitchen Steve darted away to pull it off the hob. He returned with a grin that stretched from ear to ear, and the sight of it made Alice laugh.

Steve opened his mouth, staring at her, then closed it again.

Alice smiled, opened her mouth… and then closed it as well.

They both burst out laughing: Steve in the doorway to the kitchen with his hair sticking up at odd angles (_did I do that? _Alice wondered) and Alice half draped over the back of the couch, nearly gasping at the feeling of _happiness _swelling in her chest.

Alice laughed into her hand. "You'd think we'd have lots to say to each other," she noted.

Steve pushed his hair back, still smiling as if he couldn't turn it off. "I… I…"

"I know," she finished fondly. She pushed off the couch and paced across the carpet towards him. His dark, watchful eyes followed her as she approached, then glinted when she threw her arms around his neck and leaned in to press her lips to his once more. It was a strange feeling, awkward even, but when Steve's hand – warm, now – landed on her waist she wanted to sink into him.

She was almost three inches taller than him now they were both grown, and Alice supposed they didn't exactly look like the embracing couples on the movie posters, but she frankly didn't care what they _looked _like with the way Steve tilted his head to slot his mouth against hers and the way his fingers curled and caught against the side of her dress, as if pulling her closer. A second later his hand tensed and sprang away from her side as if it'd been electrocuted. Alice smiled into the kiss.

Steve pulled back, his eyes shadowed from his closeness to Alice. Alice took the opportunity to admire his face close-up in a way she'd had very opportunities to do before. His sharp, serious jaw felt warm under her palm. His lips were slightly parted, pretty as any picture, and his eyes under his dark brows were wide and a little overwhelmed. Alice reached up to smooth her thumb up his forehead and then across one brow, flattening out the tension there.

She was just wondering how long Steve would let her stay like that, her eyes roving over his face and her fingers tracing, admiring, when he cleared his throat and said in a rough voice:

"We should go for a walk."

Alice's lips quirked. "Alright."

They slid into their coats and walked down the street to the park they used to play at as children. Steve took Alice's hand the moment they stepped out the front door. his fingers weaving between hers. When she glanced over at him, the tips of his ears were red.

At the park they settled on a bench and kissed some more. They weren't very good at it at first, which was kind of sad for a pair of twenty-three year olds, but they figured it out quickly. Kissing in the cold air was a new kind of thrill, a constant flow between warm lips, cold fingers, pounding hearts and a waft of freezing air down the back of the neck.

When an old lady cleared her throat at them with a disgusted look on her face, they went to catch a film. Alice had no idea what the film was about or what it was even called, because she and Steve sat at the very back in the dark like they would have years ago as teenagers, and kissed some more. Steve was so hesitant each time he leaned in toward her, checking that each touch and press of lips was okay. She loved the feel of his hand curved around the back of her head and how he carded his fingers through her hair, loved the earnest way he kissed her as if it were the most important thing he'd do in his life, and how his breath hitched when she curled her fingers into his collar.

The actors' voices were crisp and smoothing, and the music swelled. At the end of the movie Alice was pressed against Steve's narrow, slender-limbed body and she could feel his heart thundering in his chest, almost as fast as hers. The kissing turned slow and tender, as if they had all the time in the world.

* * *

**~_ All the time in the world ~_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My, my.
> 
> The first excerpt about SOE training came from a real BBC history online article, and the following excerpt about female spies is from a book currently sitting on my bedside table, 'The Women Who Lived For Danger' by Marcus Brinney. I went in for a healthy dose of real-life quotes for this chapter.
> 
> Also I just saw Jojo Rabbit and I cannot recommend it highly enough! I adore everything Taika Waititi makes but this was a really spectacular film.
> 
> Don't forget to comment!


	29. Chapter Twenty

"Are you alright, Alice?" asked Agent Carter two days later.

Alice blinked and glanced over her shoulder. She couldn't see the other woman since Alice was hidden behind a screen, twisting her hair away under a flat cap, but the question surprised her. Carter didn't usually small-talk, so this was a question with purpose.

"I'm… fine, I suppose." Alice tucked the last lock of hair away and then checked herself with the handmirror she'd been given. With her chest bound under baggy clothing and her hair covered, she could pass for a young man. Carter had asked to see her disguise. "Why do you ask?"

"What you learned the other day was no easy thing," came Carter's voice, softer than usual. "And you seem… distracted today."

Well, Alice supposed that was true enough. She'd come to Brooklyn with no intention of seeing any of her loved ones, _especially _Steve, and had somehow wound up with him so entrenched in her heart that she couldn't go a half hour without thinking of him. Even as the thought of him crossed her mind now a smile flitted across her face, making her appear distinctly un-boy-like.

They'd been near stupid with smiling when they parted the night of their kissing marathon across Brooklyn. Steve had walked her to her hotel and then slowly backed away, getting a little bit further each time before Alice would dart forwards to be swept up in another kiss. They'd said "goodnight" about a hundred times.

The next morning, when they caught up for breakfast, things had been strangely awkward at first. They'd made their way to a table in near silence, cautiously avoiding touch. Maybe it was the public setting, or the fresh light of morning, but Alice had felt a pall of fear come over her at the hesitation in Steve's eyes.

"Good morning," she'd begun with.

"Morning," he'd replied, eyes darting over her face. The corner of his mouth had twitched and Alice suddenly understood his hesitation: he was afraid that _she _had changed her mind.

A blinding grin had crossed her face, and like magic it lit up Steve's face as well. For a few moments they'd just grinned at each other across the table.

"Last night I was thinking," Steve began.

"You had time to think?" Alice had interrupted, mock offended.

Steve blushed, ducked his head, and smiled shyly. "After you left. I was thinking… like you said, surely we should have lots to say to each other. But we didn't. Yesterday."

They really hadn't. They'd talked about going to the park, and the movies, and about inconsequential things, but not about the drastic shift between them. It hadn't really felt startling, after all. Exciting, definitely, so much so that Alice's heart pounded against the inside of her ribs, but not strange.

After all, for years she'd been signing her letters _Yours, Alice._

"I…" Alice shook her head. "I don't know what to say." She thought about it. _I love you _seemed a little bit quick, though it didn't feel like a lie. _I want the world to stop spinning and time to freeze so I can be here with you forever. _Her pounding heart stuttered. _I must lie to you, and then leave you._

Oh. That was why she hadn't wanted to say anything.

Steve still gave her that shy smile. "I don't really know what to say either. I've never… I've always…" he shook his head. "What I mean is, I want to say that I want this. All of it. Whatever you want."

Alice had felt tears tremble at the corner of her eyes at his indomitable earnestness. She shouldn't have been surprised that he approached falling in love like he did fighting: with his whole heart.

She reached across the table to take his hand. "I want this too," she said with all of her heart. She wondered if romance always felt this terrifying or if it was just her.

Steve had let out a breath and stared at her like she had the universe inside her. "I don't know what to do now," he said slightly numbly.

Alice smiled. "I don't really know either, but you could start by kissing me."

Without needing any further convincing he'd stretched across the table to kiss her, and this time it wasn't heated or surprised because Alice knew the feel of his lips against hers and his fingers against her cheek. It was warm, familiar, and everything she ever wanted. She shivered.

Steve pulled back and sat down. "I… I hope it's not too intimidating to admit that I've been hoping for this for…" he blew out a breath. "Years."

Alice laughed. "You're not alone there."

He gave her one of his small smiles and it made her stomach do something shivery. Most days she felt a thousand years old, but all it took was a _glance _from Steve and she felt like a knock-kneed fifteen year old again.

Steve squeezed her hand and met her eyes. "So what do you say we…" he frowned. "I'm trying to say 'take it slow and see where this goes' without sounding cliched. Or stupid."

"Well that's certainly an innovative way of saying it," Alice said, feeling so fond her heart could burst. She returned the hand squeeze.

A cleared throat at the edge of the table had them both glancing over to see the waiter, looking uncomfortable. "Are you two ready to order now?"

Steve had ducked his head with a blush and Alice laughed under her breath. "Yes, thank you."

Like an echo of the memory, Alice heard someone clear their throat. Agent Carter. The disguise. Training. _Right_.

"I'm not distracted," she lied. "I'm just concentrating on this."

"Are you ready? You've been behind there ten minutes now."

Flustered, Alice set down the handmirror and came out from behind the screen. A second before she emerged she remembered her task and changed her gait to the one she used when she was 'Al' – not as regular as her usual gait, with that half-skipping quality that street boys had.

Carter stood in her usual uniform with her hands folded across her chest and her eyes assessing.

"_Bonjour madame,_" Alice uttered lowly, and touched her cap.

Carter tapped her chin, watching with a critical gaze. "Not bad, you've got the basic principle down." She gestured for Alice to turn. A full length mirror leaned against the wall, reflecting Alice's boyish appearance. Alice slouched her shoulders some more.

Carter appeared over her shoulder. "Disguise isn't about hiding your features, it's about making small changes to your appearance: wearing glasses, changing your gait and mannerisms, slight makeup to alter your face. Let's work with what you have."

Carter brought out a leather bag that clinked slightly when it moved, and the two of them opened it on the worktable. For the rest of the morning Carter showed Alice how to create false scars using wax, how to use a small bag of makeup to drastically alter the appearance, and even suggested using grease paint in low light to give her the suggestion of a beard. She had Alice walk up and down the length of the warehouse, critiquing the minutiae of how she walked and talked.

"The key to disguise is understanding your own physicality first. As a performer, you've got that skill already. Build on it."

Alice nodded mutely, concentrating on the muscles in her face and the way she projected her expression.

"You seem less distracted now," Carter noted.

Alice's façade didn't break, but she felt something inside her chest shrink. Already she was becoming Agent Homer again, _Die Sirene _again.

_How could I let Steve slip away so easily? _She thought, pulling on the cuffs of her sleeves. She swallowed. _And why should I hold on to him, if I'm just going back again?_

* * *

Excerpt from academic paper '_Analyzing Desires and Dreams: World War II' _by Eleanor Harkness (1970), p. 66

_... analysis becomes even more difficult when it comes to another prominent figure of the post-1942 push against the Nazis, Captain Steven Grant Rogers (alias: Captain America). Like many of these propaganda-based figures, his true private life remained shrouded from the public. Based on existing records, there is no evidence of his having had any significant relationships in his lifetime: no dependents included on any of his military forms, no marriage records, not even a mention of a partner in a newspaper. In his case, as in many others, some historians have posited that the lack of such evidence could suggest that he fell outside the 1940s accepted identity of 'heterosexual': in Rogers's case particularly, Brooklyn was known for being a particularly accepting place at that point in time._

_Others have pointed out that though Rogers performed with the USO and became a prominent figure in war, he was naturally very private. It's possible that he may have had deep and lasting relationships that never made their way into historical record. It's a subject that has been endlessly discussed, given his fame and lasting legacy, and will no doubt continue to be debated in perpetuity._

* * *

Carter began giving Alice 'tasks' throughout the city. It felt like a culmination of everything Alice had been learning, and a strange reminder of what she had been doing in Austria. Carter would take Alice out on a walk, point to a random stranger then say "tail that person, unobserved, and give me a complete report on their activities tomorrow", then disappear into the crowd. On other days she tasked Alice with completing an information drop with a "contact", or losing a tail that had been assigned to her.

Early in their training Carter had recited a phone number to Alice, "in case you get picked up by the police". Once, while slipping out the staff door of a department store on her way to lose a tail, a local beat cop did question Alice. Alice knew that giving him the SOE phone number would just take time and would likely impact badly on her, so she burst into tears and spun a tale about how she'd just seen her ex boyfriend with his new girlfriend and she couldn't bear to be seen alone in public by them and she saw this door and – "it's alright, ma'am," the officer interrupted, a mix of weariness and empathy in his eyes. "You go on your way now."

Alice kept up her weapons and fighting training, but most of her training time was now spent on sneaking through the city, putting on new identities and completing small, meaningless missions.

She spent every moment outside of her training with Tom, listening to his stories about school and home and buying his coffee, or on dates with Steve. True to their agreement, they were taking things slow. They still did all the things they'd done before: movies, coffee, walking around Brooklyn and getting in the occasional fight, but now they shared the same space, held hands and shared kisses and entwined themselves into each other's lives. On the colder evenings Steve invited Alice up to his place and they sat in front of the fireplace trading stories. Alice critiqued the sketches Steve had done for the newspaper, and she told him a little about the new codes she'd learned, without giving away exactly what she'd used them for. Sometimes, when she felt brave enough, she sang along to the radio like she used to.

Singing to Steve was different. She'd grown used to crowds who gasped and wept at her voice, who cried out "_Sirene_!" and showered flowers on the stage. Steve just sat there with a small smile playing at his mouth, and though he didn't say much Alice knew that he wasn't hearing the Siren. He was hearing Alice.

Alice kept so many secrets.

It felt like she was living two lives: the Alice who'd ferried illegal pamphlets around Austria and who was learning how to spy for the Allies during the day, and the Alice who spent her evenings kissing Steve Rogers on park benches and trying to get him to put his hands on her higher than her waist.

She wondered when those two Alices would meet.

* * *

Excerpt from "_Training SOE Saboteurs in World War Two" _by Bernie Ross, BBC

_An agent's progress at Beaulieu would be tested in 'schemes' lasting 48 or 72-hours. These tested the agents' ability in making contact with a 'cut out' (intermediate); tailing someone in a city; losing someone who was following him or her. Longer schemes involved making contact with a supposed resistance member. The student was given a secret number to call in the course of the project should he or she run up against the local police, who would then receive an explanation from SOE about the agent's true identity. The instructors used to think more of the students who brazened out their cover in the local police station, than of those who quickly resorted to the emergency number._

* * *

March, 1942

One evening, Alice had to cancel a dinner date with Steve as Carter had informed her they had another 'task' in the city.

Alice reported for duty outside a Manhattan bar in a dark mauve dress and heels, as per instructions, and her eyebrows flew up her forehead when she saw that Carter had changed out of her uniform and into a deep red cocktail dress. She still wore her dangerous red lipstick, but she'd also gone to extra effort to curl her hair and paint her nails.

"This is for camouflage purposes only," Carter said in response to Alice's raised eyebrows.

Alice knew better than to tell the other woman she looked nice. They weren't dressed like this for fun, that much was clear.

Alice adjusted her dress and looked up at the windows of the bar. Golden light spilled out onto the street, and she could just see silhouettes moving around inside. "What's the task?"

Carter cleared her throat. "I know you've spent years as a socialite in Austria and Germany, and that you've used that role in the past to learn information. But we may require you to do more than obtain information. We might need documents, or personal items, or technology." She jerked her head at the bar. "Inside this bar is a dark-haired businessman who arrived with three guests – two men and a woman."

At Alice's curious glance she shrugged. "I saw them walk in a few minutes ago. Your task is to steal the man's glasses. I'll go in before you to monitor your progress. When you've completed your task, meet me in the alley behind the bar. Understand?"

Alice nodded, her mind already whirling with ideas for how to part a man with his glasses.

Carter didn't move yet, though. "Ms Homer. However you undertake this mission, I want to make one thing vitally clear. Flirtation is not a tool that should be used lightly." Her eyes were serious. "It can be very useful, but it's not like learning to crack a code, or telling a lie. You will meet – and have probably already met – men for whom flirtation is an open invitation which cannot be taken back. They deserve to be…" a flash of anger crossed her face, but then Carter shook her head sharply. "You will meet them. You are a vital asset, but I do not want you to risk your life – or your safety – unnecessarily. Do you understand me?"

Alice held Carter's gaze, thinking of the hungry glances and insidious wandering hands she'd encountered since she'd been a teenager. She nodded mutely.

Carter straightened. "Excellent. Follow me inside in three minutes, but don't look for me."

"Understood," Alice said. A moment later she stood alone on the pavement, shivering in the cold and trying not to think about what Carter feared.

* * *

The task ended up being simple enough. She found the businessman quickly, as he and his companions cheered loudly over a round of champagne. Perhaps Carter's words had impacted more heavily than she'd thought, because she avoided the direct route and instead made friends with the man's female companion in the bathroom and got an invitation to their table.

She sat with them for half an hour, sharing drinks with them (though careful not to drink more than a few sips) and learning about the recent success of their small business near Times Square. As far as they knew she was from out of town, with an unidentifiable southern accent.

She only saw Carter once, as she approached the bar and ordered a whisky. Carter didn't look her way and a moment later had faded into the throng of bar patrons again.

It took another ten minutes for Alice to steal the man's glasses. She'd noticed that he kept sliding them off his nose to clean them with the corner of his jacket, almost a nervous instinct, or perhaps the smoke in the bar was fogging them. She went to the bar to order another round, but waited with the drinks, watching the businessman, until he slid his glasses off his nose again.

When she approached the table with the drinks and called for a _cheers _of celebration, the businessman had the glasses awkwardly pinched in one hand against his jacket and the other with a champagne flute pressed into it. Alice tried not to grin when he set the glasses down on the table instead of trying to put them on one-handed.

One of his male companions, effervescent with drink, gave a speech commending everyone on their efforts. Alice sat down with a stumble, and an instant later the glasses were tucked into her pocket. She made sure to keep them raising their glasses for another minute. When all the fuss was over the businessman set his hand on the table where the glasses had been, but then looked up when his female companion drew him into the debate Alice had started about whether working in Manhattan or further outside the city was more profitable.

Alice stayed another ten minutes to divert suspicion, then feigned a yawn and stepped away, careful not to make her departure too memorable or too sudden.

She pushed open the heavy back door to the alley behind the bar with a half-hidden grin on her face, which fell the moment she saw what waited for her beyond.

Carter stood in the center of the narrow, barely-lit alleyway, standing with her shoulders straight and her chin high as she faced off against four men swaying from booze, their attention focused on Carter's red lips and figure-hugging dress. Carter's back was to Alice, but Alice could sense her wariness from here.

"Why don't you go home now, gentlemen," Carter said. Her voice was crisp, fearless. In the half-open door Alice shivered in the cold night air.

"Why don't you come with us, sweetheart?" said the foremost man. There was a single streetlight at the end of the alleyway, and Alice could just make out the details of his broad face. The men fanned out and two of them slipped to Carter's right, encircling her. Carter's head turned slightly and Alice saw her eyes darting, calculating. Neither she nor the men had noticed Alice yet, as the bar door was in shadow from a nearby building's overhang.

Alice slid through the door, shut it silently behind her, and slipped through the shadows.

The man who'd first spoken stepped forward and grabbed Carter's arm, and all the hairs on Alice's body stood up. But within the space of a second Carter reached out, there was a whirl of movement, and suddenly the man howled in pain.

The other three swore and rushed Carter. Alice dove for the loose brick she'd spotted at the end of the alley, heaved it up and then descended on the men. The instant her gaze settled on the first large, looming silhouette she slammed the brick into the side of his head – _the skull is thinnest at the temple_, she remembered. The man staggered but didn't drop; she'd misjudged slightly. Alice kicked the side of his knee and he went down. Her breath rasped in her throat.

The next man had turned to face her so she swung the brick at him too. It cracked into his nose and the reverberation made her drop the brick. The man reeled back, swearing, and Alice saw that the first man had gripped Carter from behind and was holding her fast despite her sharp twisting and her attempts to impale his feet with her heeled shoes.

Alice dodged past the man with the broken nose and jumped on Carter's attacker's back. He grunted at her weight, and then let out an _urk _when she cinched her arm around his neck in a vice-like choke hold that Carter had taught her. He scrabbled and reached over his shoulder to land a flailing punch on Alice's shoulder, making her hiss.

But he'd lost his grip on Carter. The agent reeled away to land a blow down on the first man Alice had hit, who'd climbed to his feet. The man Alice was choking the life out of slowly sank to the pavement, but then she felt hands on her shoulders and a second of sickening weightlessness before she crashed onto her side on the ground. Her head bounced off the pavement and she flashed back to a night years earlier in Brooklyn, of looming shadows and drunken breath.

She rolled over to see the man whose nose she had smashed to bits descending on her, teeth bared. He must have torn her off his friend. The rage in his eyes sent an ice-cold thrill down her spine. He reached down to grab her and she rolled, tumbling across the muck-covered alley pavement to escape his reaching hands. He followed up with a kick, which she scrambled on her hands and knees to avoid, her heartbeat deafening in her ears.

Alice rolled, scrambled and tripped backward down the alleyway as the man limped after her, swearing at her, calling her vile names that made her heart pound harder. The sounds of Carter and the other men fighting echoed after them. Her shoulder slammed into the alley wall and she rolled sideways to avoid another booted kick. The shadow of a building blocked out the streetlight and she glanced up to see a metal fire escape on the wall above her, too high to reach. The snarling man's footsteps scraped across the pavement.

The end of a string brushed Alice's cheek. She knew its purpose, there'd been a similar string tied to the fire escape at her old place in Brooklyn: a way up to the roof if you ever got locked out. Not strictly legal, but there all the same.

Alice scrambled back further as the man kept coming, and her back hit the brick wall. The man stormed up to her and Alice saw that his eyes were swallowed with blackness and hatred – and she yanked on the string.

The metal ladder crashed down directly onto the man's head. He dropped like a toppled building and actually bounced when he hit the ground.

Chest heaving, Alice looked up to see Carter rushing down the alley toward her, her heels clicking on the ground. Three unmoving silhouettes lay at the other end of the alley. Alice's breath rasped in her throat and she felt the stinging wetness of tears on her face.

Carter stepped over the fallen man and dropped to her knees beside Alice, her fingers flying to check her pulse, and then probing the scrape on her cheek and her torn clothes. "Are you hurt?"

Alice shook her head. Swallowed. She could taste blood, but she didn't think she was bleeding. "No."

"Good." Carter stilled with her hand on Alice's shoulder. "Thank you."

Alice met her eyes and saw it all from Carter's perspective: for her, Alice was still an unknown quantity. A double agent. Alice could have just disappeared into the darkness and left Carter to deal with the men. Alice thought that Carter could probably have handled them all the same, but she realized she'd made an impression.

Carter offered her hand. Alice took it and let the other woman pull her to her feet. She'd lost a shoe somewhere. Her heart was still racing and panic clawed at her chest.

"Did you get it?" Carter asked.

Alice blinked, then stared at the woman. She still cared about _that_? Numbly she reached into her pocket and pulled out the pair of glasses. Both lenses were shattered and the frame twisted.

Carter smiled at her. "Well done, Alice."

She blew out a shaky breath. "Not too bad yourself, Agent Carter."

"I think it's about time you started calling me Peggy." With that, Carter – _Peggy _– put her arm around Alice, who had started to shake, and they walked down the alleyway into the night.

* * *

New York Police Department Report 45830, Patrol Supervisor, 67 Precinct (1942):

_... three individuals still in hospital, not expected to be discharged for another day or so. They refuse to give any information about their attacker(s). Officer Mulligan has interviewed them about the possibility of a mob connection (this was theorized early on, given the lack of witnesses and the mens injuries and silence), offering protection in exchange for information, but they still refuse to discuss the attack._

* * *

Once again, Moser had surprised Peggy. Peggy turned it over in her mind as she led the young woman back to the nearest SSR safehouse in Manhattan so they could tend to their wounds. Alice didn't speak much on the way, absorbed in her own thoughts.

Colonel Phillips had been so ready to denounce the young Austrian as a HYDRA plant when he heard Peggy's first report on the mysterious 'contact' sent to them by their French intelligence connections. Peggy had suspected the same (after her initial surprise at seeing none other than _Alice Moser _on that bench in Central Park), and dealt with her with appropriate caution. A HYDRA spy was still worth keeping close at hand, after all. But after a week Peggy was almost certain that wasn't what was going on.

Sitting on a wooden chair in the sparse safehouse as she probed Alice's ankle to check for a sprain, Peggy observed the other woman out of the corner of her eye.

Moser was hard to read. She'd come off as blank-faced and cautious when they'd first met, but Peggy had been able to tell that under that she was nervous, and desperate for _something _from Peggy. It turned out that she'd been desperate for help. Since then Peggy had come to learn so much more about her. As her reports to Phillips reflected, Peggy was certain that Alice could be a vital asset for the SSR in Germany and Austria, if only she could restrain her innate drive to _help _just enough to stay hidden.

Alice hadn't sprained her ankle. Peggy stood to fetch a damp cloth (hiding a wince – those men in the alley hadn't been easy to bring down), then began sponging the grime off the side of Alice's face. Alice's eyes weren't fixed anywhere in particular, but Peggy sensed her focusing on Peggy herself. They'd turned on a single gas lamp, which illuminated them both in golden light and shadows. Peggy could hear creaking floorboards and groaning pipes throughout the old apartment building.

"Was that your first fight?" Peggy asked.

Alice let out a breath, almost a laugh, and shook her head. "No. I had… an interesting childhood." The corner of her mouth lifted, then turned down as if remembering a sour memory. "This was the first one where someone made it clear they wanted to kill me, though."

"It's never easy. Thank you," Peggy repeated. "For helping me." She didn't often need help, but she had to admit that a part of her had felt relieved to see Alice emerging out of the darkness with a brick in her hand and ice-cold fury glinting in her eyes.

Alice didn't look at her. "You didn't think I would." More of a statement than a question.

Peggy let out a slow breath through her nose. She hadn't been sure. She'd pegged Alice as the kind to go get help rather than the kind to dive into a brawl headfirst. It didn't seem like her. Alice thought everything through. But yet, here they were.

"It's like I said when we met," Alice murmured. "It's safest not to trust."

Peggy pressed her lips together and eyed Alice's face. Her eyes were fixed in the middle distance. She'd stopped shaking, but she'd gone back to being pale and quiet again. It was always this way with Alice – when she got startled or upset she turned utterly silent. It was impossible to know what she was thinking.

Peggy reflected, not for the first time, that Alice must feel incredibly lonely. That was a spy's lot, after all.

She cleared her throat. "I know that you have an immense capacity for deception, Alice," she began, and Alice stiffened. "So I'm naturally suspicious when you're open with me. I might be your trainer, but you must know that I'm also assigned to keep an eye on you. At first I thought you were lulling me into a false sense of security, but… I think I've misjudged you. I've been treating you like a double agent-"

"Which I am-"

"But that's not quite it either. You're principled, brave." Alice's eyes flicked to Peggy's, then away again. "You're kind, which is rare these days. You also happen to be an incredible liar. It's taken me some time to reconcile the two and to see the first fact for what it is: a fact. Not a disguise. But I think you are just what this war – no. You are just what this _world _needs."

Alice's green eyes widened in the gloom. Peggy didn't know everything Alice had done and felt, but she probably knew more than most. She knew the value of being seen for all your skills and secrets and being told it was worth it.

Peggy stood up and went to the drink cabinet, to give Alice some time to think. As she poured out two tumblers of whiskey she thought about how she'd have to change her assessment of Project Homer in her next report to Phillips. _She's almost ready._

Not for the first time, Peggy thought about Project Rebirth and the conversations (both formal and informal) she'd had with Doctor Erskine about his ideal candidate. Recently, when they spoke, she'd thought more and more of Alice when he described the qualities necessary. But each time the thought crossed her mind she dashed it away. Alice was needed _behind _enemy lines, not on the front line. If it weren't for Alice's perfect cover as the Siren, Peggy would take the idea to Erskine straight away.

Peggy picked up the whiskey tumblers and carried them across the paisley carpet to where Alice sat by the desk. She set one down in front of her.

"What are you most worried about, going back?" Peggy asked in a low tone. She'd been to Vienna once, before the war, and she couldn't imagine living in the heart of it all now.

Alice rubbed her jaw and wrapped her fingers around her glass. "There are too many things to count. But I'm ready for it, I think. The only thing is…" she shook her head and took a sip. She didn't grimace at the taste of the cheap whiskey. Peggy supposed she had too much practice with pretending to enjoy things she didn't have a taste for.

"What?" Peggy prompted. When Alice stayed silent, she added: "This isn't going in any files, Alice. I promise."

Alice swallowed. "It's going to be hard leaving Brooklyn again… harder than I thought it would be."

"Leaving Brooklyn, or leaving your loved ones?"

The blank façade vanished in an instant and Alice met Peggy's eyes with a fierce look on her face.

"Don't give me that look." Peggy knocked back a sip. "You had to know we'd have agents vet the people you've been spending time with. I personally vetted your brother. Neither he nor your friends have any European affiliation at all, aside from you, so you needn't worry about us bothering them." Peggy fully intended to incinerate the files the moment they weren't needed. Aside from vetting the brother she hadn't looked into Alice's connections in New York, once the SSR verified that they were neutral. She couldn't imagine going to work each day knowing that if she slipped up her family and friends might be put at risk. Not that she had a family anymore anyway, what with her brother dead and her mother disowning her.

"Well that's a relief," Alice said, though she did shoot Peggy another sour look.

"Unless you involve them somehow," Peggy warned gently.

"Don't worry, they don't know anything." A shadow crossed her face. "And I don't intend to tell them. It would only put them in danger."

"Smart choice," Peggy murmured. "But not an easy one, I imagine." She realized that she didn't know a lot about Alice's personal life – had made a choice not to, actually, to make training her all the easier. She supposed Alice wouldn't have much of a personal life, which was why this time in Brooklyn must be so precious. Peggy knew about the brother: half Austrian, half African American, in high school. She didn't know how close they were, but Peggy suspected that Alice had not come all the way across the ocean just for the SSR.

Peggy reflected, as she eyed Alice's somber face, that in another world or another time they could be friends. They were, in a way, but in the way that soldiers were friends. They didn't have the luxury of having fun together.

"How do you keep up close relationships, with all your secrets?" Alice asked, as if reading Peggy's mind.

She sighed. "I don't, really. Like you, I imagine, I haven't a lot of time for family or friends – what with my work. And I find I often struggle to find an equal." Her brow furrowed a moment, but then it cleared and resolute determination filled her chest again. "But. No use complaining about it, the war will end one way or another and then life shall go on."

Alice's eyes, so much older than she really was, rested on Peggy's face. "I hope you're right."

* * *

The next day was Saturday, and Bucky was back in Brooklyn to surprise his sister for her birthday. Alice remembered Becca from her childhood and couldn't quite believe the girl was turning fifteen. She wished she could celebrate with her.

But no one in Bucky's family knew that Alice was back, and it had to stay that way.

So she found herself in demolitions training with Peggy outside the city while Bucky and Steve attended Becca's party. She and Peggy spoke more often since the night of the alleyway fight – it turned out smashing in men's heads together was a great way to make friends. Alice chatted more with Peggy about her life before Vienna, in general terms, and even hinted at maybe having had some luck in the romance department recently. Peggy seemed more willing to laugh, and had Alice laughing in her turn with her rapier-fast wit. So blowing stuff up in a snow-laden field in the middle of February turned out to be lots of fun.

Once the black sedan car dropped Alice back at her hotel she quickly darted upstairs to get changed, then walked through the cooling air across Brooklyn to a bar she'd agreed to meet Steve and Bucky at after the party. She was early, so she took up a seat at the back (it took her a minute to realize she'd selected the best position to surveil the room from – she supposed all her training was working) and waited.

Steve arrived first, cheeks pink from the cold and the back of his coat collar stuck up at a haphazard angle. He was dressed nicely from the party, in his best shirt and pressed black trousers. He looked around with a furrow on his brow, but as soon as he spotted Alice at the far side of the bar the furrow cleared and that small smile lit up on his face. Alice's heart thudded.

"Bucky's a few minutes behind me," he explained as he slid onto the booth beside her. Their legs pressed against each other and Alice swooped in for a kiss he wasn't quite ready for – he blinked, slack mouthed, but then closed his eyes to return it. "Hi," he murmured against her mouth.

"Hi," she murmured back, fighting back a smile at how tentative he still remained even after a few weeks of… well, she supposed they could call it dating.

They ordered drinks and sat side by side in the booth as Steve recounted Becca's birthday party; apparently she was stepping out with a boy and Bucky had the sweats about it.

When the door to the bar next swung open, Alice knew it was Bucky; he had one of those presences that most people usually referred to as being the 'life of the party' or 'having a big personality'. To Alice it just meant _Bucky_.

He wasn't wearing his uniform, which made her secretly glad, but had clearly dressed up nicely for his little sister's birthday as well. His gaze swung across the room, landed on his two friends, and instantly a grin crossed his face.

And Alice thought: _he knows. _She didn't know how – she and Steve were sitting a few feet apart, just sitting and drinking really, but the glee in Bucky's eyes could not be mistaken.

He confirmed it a minute later by crowing across the room: "_Finally_!"

Alice scowled as he strode across the room toward them. Steve let out a sigh under his breath.

"I didn't tell him," Steve muttered. "I wanted to check with you first, but I guess…"

"He guessed," Alice finished.

Bucky dropped into the booth across from them, radiating residual cold from outside, and grinned at them. "About time, you two. When did this happen?" He gestured between them with a flap of his hand.

Alice was content to keep scowling, but then she felt Steve's warm hand cover hers on the table, and she glanced across at him in surprise to see him smile shyly. "Not long," he said to Bucky, but didn't take his eyes off her.

Unable to help herself, her scowl turned into a grin.

When she turned back to Bucky, his self-satisfied smirk had turned into his smaller, more genuine smile.

"Congratulations guys." He leaned back in his seat. "So go on, tell me all the gory details. Who confessed their deep and unabating love first?"

Alice's face fell into a scowl again, but that just made his smile widen. Alice didn't have to look to know that Steve was blushing again.

"Steve, then," Bucky surmised. He leaned forward again and propped his chin on his hand. "So Alice, how does it feel to be stepping out with the biggest brawler in Brooklyn of the last…" he counted on his hands, "ten consecutive years? Adds a little prestige, right?"

"I've never felt luckier," she deadpanned, though she squeezed Steve's hand to soften the joke.

Bucky's head swiveled to Steve. "And how's it feel to have snagged an internationally famous singer? We'll have to find you a nice suit for awards nights, I have a feeling you'll be attending lots of those-"

"Buck," Steve chided, but the smile he wore just goaded Bucky on.

Bucky teased them mercilessly for the rest of the night. Alice scowled and deflected his questions, but they'd always played this game in their friendship – she knew that Bucky's teases and jokes were his way of showing her how excited and happy he was. And he knew that she wasn't _actually _threatening to have his tongue surgically removed. She was saying _thank you_. Steve laughed at their barbs and joined in with his own, and the three of them drank their way through enough rounds to make the room spin a little.

When it was Steve's turn to buy he went up to the bar, trying not to stumble (he'd never had a very high alcohol tolerance), and after ordering propped his elbow on the counter and waited. A moment later Bucky appeared beside him, leaning against the bar with a broad grin on his face.

Steve rolled his eyes before facing his friend. "Go on, get it all out."

"Get _what _all out?" Bucky replied innocently. His eyes gleamed. "The fact that I get to say _I told you so_ after what, almost ten years? My congratulations and shock that either of you were able to make a move? My commiserations that you happen to be head over heels about one of the most complicated-"

"I changed my mind," Steve sighed, "I'd rather you kept it all in."

Bucky laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "In all seriousness, pal, I'm happy for you both. It's about six years too late, but better late than never, right?"

Steve glanced across the now bustling bar to where Alice sat by herself tracing a finger through the condensation on the wooden table, and his face went warm. He'd at least gotten past the stage of pinching himself to make sure it was all real.

"Gross," Bucky said fondly after a moment of watching Steve watch Alice. His tone dropped. "I know it ain't my place to ask, but… has she said anything more about Austria? Why she won't tell anyone here she's back? Is she…?" He trailed off with a furrowed brow.

"No, she hasn't said anything. She mentions Austria occasionally, but it's usually to compare the seasons or talk about how the food is different." He shrugs. "I suppose I haven't asked, either."

"Should you?"

Steve shook his head. "She won't tell me anything even if I do ask, I know she won't."

"Steve…"

He sighed. "Buck, I know it kills you not knowing, and trust me it does me too. But Alice… whatever secrets she's got, I know she can take care of them. You can't push her."

"Well I know _that_. Did she tell you she threatened to hamstring me when she first arrived?"

"Did you deserve it?"

"Well… yeah, I s'pose." Bucky shrugged, laughed, and the mood lightened. The bartender slid their drinks across the counter and the two friends carried them back to the booth.

Alice looked up with a wry smile. "Are you both done talking about me?"

"I can keep going if you like," Bucky offered. He took a sip of his beer as he sat down. "I'll start by saying that I think your coat looks weird."

Steve spluttered his drink as Alice looked down at her tartan coat and arched an eyebrow. "Like you know the first thing about fashion, Barnes. Are you wearing _brown brogues _with those trousers? What an atrocity."

Bucky grinned and looked fit to return fire, but Steve interrupted by hoisting his beer into the air between them.

"To Alice!" he toasted.

"To Alice," Bucky joined in good naturedly, and Alice beamed at them.

She raised her glass. "To Brooklyn, and beer, and to both of you." She nudged Steve. "But especially you."

Steve's ears went red and his face softened, but Bucky slapped a hand to his chest like he'd been struck with an arrow.

"I see how it's going to be now," he exclaimed dramatically, "you two, off in your white house with a picket fence-"

"There's no picket fences in Brooklyn-" Steve interrupted with a laugh, but Bucky wasn't done.

"- while I'm out in the cold, friendless, abandoned-"

"Yes, you're clearly terrible at making friends," Alice shot back, nodding to where the woman Bucky had chatted up at the bar earlier was looking across the room at him with warmth.

"Huh," Bucky looked over his shoulder. "Speaking of abandonment…" He slid out of the booth and pushed to his feet with his drink in his hand. He turned, paused to shoot Steve and Alice a thumbs up, and then walked across the bar to the now beaming woman.

Alice laughed into Steve's shoulder. When she looked up she found him looking fondly down at her.

"Never thought we'd get this," he murmured.

Alice felt a twist of affection and pain in her chest but she pushed it down. "Neither did I." She leaned further into him, sharing his warmth, and slid her hand into his. "Let's enjoy it."

* * *

Excerpt from Smithsonian Museum Newsletter article "_Re-evaluating items brought out of storage: the 'JBB Box'",_ Billy Hennes (1983)

_These items have been in Smithsonian custody since they were donated decades ago by the Barnes family: a box of mementos, certificates, letters, and keepsakes that James Buchanan Barnes himself put into storage before leaving for the war in Europe. However at the time of donation the museum was unable to process the box and put its items on display due to budget cuts and some confidentiality issues regarding SSR archival files being withheld, and so the box lived on in storage. But now historians at the museum can bring these items out for the public, to shed some light on the only Howling Commando (save for Captain Rogers) who gave his life in service._

_... includes a note addressed to Barnes, a noted ladies-man of Brooklyn, undated but likely from his military training period as it references him 'returning to camp' soon. The note's tone is teasing, familiar, which at first suggested it came from a family member, but the note is signed 'A'. None of his family members have this initial. Perhaps this is evidence that Barnes had had some longer relationships than previously thought. Perhaps this was a sweetheart who grieved him long after his fatal fall in the war._

* * *

Bucky didn't end up going home with the woman from the bar, but he did get her number. Steve went to the bathroom before the walk home so Bucky gloated to Alice as they stood in the snow outside the bar, waving the napkin with the woman's number on it.

Alice didn't hide her smile this time. She'd noticed a seriousness hiding behind Bucky's smiles that hadn't been there before; he talked a lot about his training but not about what was coming his way: orders to ship overseas. In many ways she understood the looming fear of war hanging over him.

His easy laughter and glee now reminded Alice of the carefree Bucky she'd known in her childhood. She didn't begrudge him that.

Some of her thoughts must have shown in her face, because the teasing glint slid off Bucky's face. He stuck his hands in his pockets.

"I meant what I said, Alice. I really am happy for you."

Her face softened. "I know, Bucky. Thank you. It's… not anything I ever expected, but it's… it's nice."

He smiled. "You both deserve it." A moment later he swooped in to hug her tightly, near lifting her off her feet with the strength of it. Alice held him back but this felt like more than a hug – it was Bucky trying to keep her _here. _As if he could sense something coming.

"You're safe here, Alice. Both of you. Steve's an idiot and he'll keep trying to enlist but I hope to god they won't send him over. He'll need… he'll need you here with him. And you need him, too."

She felt glad he'd hugged her to say this, so she didn't have to see the earnestness in his eyes. She pressed her palms against his back, and didn't say anything. She desperately wanted to but she knew that if she spoke now she would cry. Cold wind blew against her face.

Eventually Bucky pulled back, dusted her down, and stepped away. The bar door swung open to reveal Steve, and he quirked a brow at them.

"I oughta head back home, see if I can't find out more about this fella of Becca's," Bucky said. "You two get home safe, alright? No detours to fight."

"No promises," Steve replied wryly.

Just before Bucky turned to leave, Alice shot him a small salute. He hesitated, eyes going serious, before saluting in reply. A moment later he was just a silhouette in the darkness.

Alice looped her arm through Steve's. "Walk me back to the hotel?"

He leaned in close. "Of course."

(They both ended up disobeying Bucky's instruction not to fight when they spotted a grown man shove a newsboy into a drift of snow, but they agreed that it was worth it and promised to never tell Bucky).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this chapter and the next were going to be one long mega chapter, but I decided to split them up for ~suspense~. Next chapter, Peggy brings her trust in Alice to a new level. Thoughts? Ideas?


	30. Chapter Twenty One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is about 80% dramatic conversations. No regrets.

The next day when the black sedan picked Alice up outside her hotel, it took off in a new direction. Alice instantly straightened.

"Where are we going?"

Peggy looked up briefly from her file. "No training today. There's someone I'd like you to see."

Alice's mouth turned down. "Not Phillips?"

Peggy's lips curled. "No. Not Phillips."

Alice shrugged and leaned back in the seat as the sedan once more whisked her to an unknown place. But this car ride wasn't long. When it pulled up on the curb outside a storefront that read _Brooklyn Antiques_, Alice turned to Peggy with a frown. "What is this, a shopping day?"

"Not quite." Peggy climbed gracefully out of the car and waited for Alice on the sidewalk. With a sigh, Alice followed her out. A moment later her eyes darted to another black car across the street, with a young man in a brown flat cap leaning seemingly aimlessly against the side of it. As she looked, the man's eyes flicked to her, to Peggy, and then away. Alice tensed.

Peggy's hand landed on her arm. "Relax, Ms Homer. He's where he's meant to be." Alice's eyes widened and she turned to see Peggy's lips quirked at her. "But excellent spotting."

A guard, or some kind of lookout then. Alice risked one last glance over her shoulder at the man – who ignored her – and then followed Peggy into the dimly-lit antiques store. The bell over the door tinkled as they entered.

Her nose wrinkled at the smell of dust and mothballs. Knick-knacks, old furniture and musty clothing were assembled in the store seemingly at random, lit only by yellow lamps with tassels. A grotesque-looking ceramic cat eyeballed Alice from across the room.

"Why is there a sentry watching over an antiques store?" Alice asked aloud.

"Hush," Peggy answered, though there was no one else in the room. But a moment later an elderly woman in a paisley brown dress and cardigan emerged through a pair of hanging drapes which Alice hadn't distinguished as a doorway.

A slight smile lifted the woman's face at the sight of them. "See anything you like, dears?"

_Absolutely not_, Alice thought.

But Peggy replied: "I'm in the market for a Persian rug, actually."

Alice's eyes rolled. _Another code._

Without saying another word the elderly woman walked behind the sales desk and her hand dipped below sight.

"Let's go through," Peggy murmured. Alice followed her through the hanging drapes, sparing a moment to glance back at the elderly woman. She just smiled genially back at her.

The room beyond was small, with a desk, empty picture frames, and a bookshelf that took up the entire wall. Peggy paused just inside the drapes, looking expectant.

"So where's the hidden door?" Alice whispered. Peggy smiled, and a moment later the bookshelf wall split open and swung toward them like a set of great wooden doors. Alice couldn't even shoot a smug _I told you so _glance at Peggy, because she was too absorbed by what lay beyond: a long, sterile-looking corridor with metal doors at the end, and half a dozen people wearing a mix of military uniforms and doctors' labcoats walking from one place to another. No one so much as glanced at Peggy and Alice as they strode forward, save for a soldier in an _MP _hat at the entryway. Alice smoothed down her coat front.

Peggy seemed to know exactly where she was going as she led Alice down the corridor, turned left, and then made her way through what seemed to be a warren of corridors. They passed closed doors and steel-reinforced windows that looked into lab spaces. One window they passed overlooked a large, circular room with an observation platform. Men in overalls were building some kind of contraption in the center, but most of it was covered in white sheets. Alice got only a glimpse before Peggy outstripped her.

"This is another SSR facility," Alice murmured. Probably the _scientific installation _she had heard mentioned a few times, though she didn't bring that up since she wasn't supposed to know about it.

"Indeed." Peggy's heels clicked on the floor. A passing MP tipped his cap at her. "One which you are _not _going to learn anything further about, so keep your eyes front and center."

Alice obeyed. "Why take the risk of bringing me here, then?" She didn't exactly _want _confidential information that might put her in more danger.

"It's safer to bring you here than meet elsewhere. You'll see." Peggy slowed. "Here we are."

She'd brought Alice to a nondescript door like a dozen others they had passed, unpainted grey metal with an opaque rectangular window. Peggy knocked twice, pushed down the handle and gestured Alice inside.

Alice stepped through cautiously and found herself in an office space, surprisingly small for the scale of this facility, without much in it aside from a file cabinet with scientific instruments crammed on top of it, and a desk piled with handwritten notes. There were no windows. It wasn't exactly a forbidding place, but it was strange. Alice's eyes flicked over it all before landing on the man sitting at the desk, who she'd nearly missed given that he was so hunched over his notes.

The man had thinning grey hair and wore a white lab coat, and when he looked up to see who'd interrupted him she noticed a three-day-old beard, intelligent dark eyes behind wireframe glasses, and…

Alice's mouth dropped open. It wasn't often she visibly showed surprise, but she had never expected to see Doctor Erskine again in her life after meeting him at Herr Schmidt's ill-fated party in the mountains… and here he was. Alive, healthy, maybe a little tired, sitting at a desk in front of her. Silence filled the room.

Alice's open-mouthed look of surprise shifted into a grin.

Doctor Erskine blinked at the sight of Alice, then looked from her to Peggy and back again. Peggy watched them both with a small smile.

"_Frä__u__lein,_" Erskine breathed. He planted his hands on his desk and slowly rose to his feet, wide-eyed. "How…?"

Alice just smiled brighter. "It seems we know some of the same people, Dr Erskine."

His lips curled up in a smile. "_Frä__u__lein _Moser, it is _wonderful _to see you again." His accent was almost strange to her ears after two months away from Austria and suppressing her natural accent.

He stepped out from behind his desk, and a moment later they came together and clasped hands with the intimacy of two people who had once felt hopeless together but were now free.

"You look well," Alice smiled. He'd put on weight since she'd last seen him at Castle Kauffman, and the shadows of desperation were gone. "So Agent Carter got you out, then?"

Peggy stood at the door with her hands on her hips and the hint of a smile on her face.

Erskine looked from Alice to Peggy and back again. "You knew…?"

"Not at the time, I figured it out later-"

At that moment a set of energetic footsteps resounded outside the open office door and a second later a stranger burst in. Heedless of Peggy's hands flying up to keep him out the man said: "Pegs, what on earth are you bothering my co-scientist for? Don't you know we're on the clock here-"

Then the intruder realized there was someone else in the room, and they all fell silent.

This was the most sharply-dressed man Alice had seen yet in the facility; neither a soldier nor a doctor by the look of him. He wore a three-piece suit with a fashionable burgundy tie, and intelligent dark eyes glinted out of a handsome face. A mustache sat on his upper lip. Peggy had one hand on his chest as if about to shove him back out the door.

"You're Howard Stark," Alice blurted out in yet another uncharacteristic moment of surprise. She'd grown up with Bucky and his science obsession, and suffered through his adoration of the young science and business mogul's rise to prominence. Even in Austria it was impossible to escape news of the man.

Mr Stark flicked his dark eyes over her and Alice felt her heart seize out of fear: _does he recognize me? Who will he tell?_

"No," Stark eventually said. "I'm _enchanted._" He ducked out from behind Peggy's arm to sweep across the room, take Alice's hand and drop a mustached kiss on the back of it. "Who might you be, sweetheart?"

Alice snatched her hand back with a scowl, and at that moment Peggy seized Stark by the back of his collar and hauled him physically out of the room. The door clicked shut behind them. Alice and Erskine looked at each other.

"Well," Erskine said. He eyed her face and saw the worry there. "Don't fear, _Frä__u__lein. _Stark is loyal to the SSR, he won't destroy your cover."

Alice raised an eyebrow. "Cover?"

Erskine gestured a hand. "You are here. In the company of Agent Carter. No ordinary civilians are permitted this far." He shot her a smile. "Besides, Agent Carter has mentioned she's been training a new recruit."

"Did she happen to mention how I'm doing?" Alice asked.

He winked. "You and I know her better than that. Come, sit."

Erskine dragged a secondary chair to the side of his desk, where Alice perched and tried not to look too closely at his notes. She thought back to that night at Castle Kauffman. She'd been hopeless and helpless then, dragging herself from one day to the next with the vague expectation of death or the end of the war. Thinking back to that made her heart ache.

"Where is your puppetmaster?" asked Erskine, with a look of concern on his face.

"Dead," Alice replied flatly.

"Ah," he nodded. "How does it feel to be free?"

Alice sighed and rested her head on her hand. "I don't miss him in the slightest. But that doesn't necessarily mean that my life has gotten any easier." She shrugged. "How about your puppetmaster?"

She wished he could say _dead _as well, because she hadn't liked Schmidt and one less Nazi was one less problem for her, but Peggy had briefed her on the SSR's targets, foremost of which was HYDRA and its leader Johann Schmidt. Last intel said he was alive and in exile in his headquarters, cooking up trouble.

Erskine's gaze became complicated. "He… is still alive. More monstrous now, no doubt, than when I left him." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry, _Frä__u__lein, _this is most likely classified and I can't give you details."

Alice suspected she knew more than Erskine thought she did (Peggy hadn't given her a whole lot of details, but Alice knew that some kind of science experiment had gone very wrong, severely disfiguring Schmidt but making him stronger). She let it go, though.

"Well, let's avoid discussing our secrets then. How do you find New York, doctor? I'm from here, you know."

"Ah, I shall keep my complaints to a minimum then," he said with a teasing glint in his eye. "I'm living in Queens, wonderful neighborhood – what is that face for?"

Alice realized she'd wrinkled her nose, and laughed. "Sorry, sorry. I'm from Brooklyn, I suppose it's… regional pride. Can't quite turn it off."

"Understandable. Though it is incumbent upon me to remind you that Queens is not only quieter than Brooklyn, but also has a lower crime rate."

Alice's mouth dropped open. "That may be the case, doctor, but I think you'll find that Queens is _boring_."

"I find _boring _to be a refreshing change of pace."

Sitting in the cramped office (Erskine later explained that he usually worked in 'the lab), Alice and Erskine chatted back and forth about everything other than the highly secret jobs they'd taken on. When they spoke of home – Germany for him, Austria for her, it was in low, somber voices. Erskine confided that he missed _Spaetzle _pasta and _Lebkuchen _cookies. Alice described her last visit to the Austrian Alps (leaving out the part about smuggling a Jewish family in her car), and they both wore smiles.

Erskine asked, with a slight blush, if Alice would sing for him. "I know it mustn't have been a happy moment for you, but that night when I heard you perform was one of the only moments of genuine happiness I had in that castle." His brow had gone heavy.

"Of course," Alice murmured. She took a moment to think. She knew so many songs by now: soaring operettas that could bring grown men to tears, heart-pounding songs of patriotism, complicated arias that had her dancing up and down her vocal range.

But she went with what she would want to hear, if she'd found herself alone in an unfamiliar country, desperately fighting against the rising tide of terror.

"_Guten Abend, gut' Nacht, mit Rosen bedacht…_" [_Good evening, good night, bedecked with roses…_]

The lullaby had become famous across the world and had its German origins forgotten. Alice's mother had sung it to her when she was a child, when it was just the two of them alone and uncertain of the future in Brooklyn. Alice hadn't sung it in years.

Erskine's eyes closed the moment she began to sing, almost like a child falling asleep to the lullaby. Alice knew he wasn't asleep, though. His glasses had misted up.

When she hit the highest note in the chorus, softly so as not to be heard in the corridor, the corner of his mouth ticked up. It was a smile, but so sad it almost took Alice's breath away.

"_Schlaf nur selig und süß,__ schau im Traum's Paradies._" [_Sleep only blessed and sweet, see paradise in your dreams._]

Erskine's eyes opened as her voice faded away. "My wife used to sing that for our children."

Alice opened her mouth to ask, but she already knew the answer. She knew that Erskine was not a man who would flee without his family. She'd already recognized the sadness in his eyes back in Bavaria. She _knew._

So she didn't ask. She leaned across the desk, took his hand and squeezed. "They'd be proud of you, Doctor."

"I hope so." He shook his head, and Alice could practically see the memories shaking away. "What of your family? Are they proud of you?"

She thought not of her uncle but of her mom and Matthias. Tom. Bucky and Steve. She swallowed. "I hope so."

His eyes went sad again, a mirror to her grief. Maybe he saw her uncertainty. "They would be proud of you," he said firmly.

Alice smiled. A moment later the door opened again to admit Peggy, carrying a tray with a pot and teacups on it. "I hope I'm not intruding," she said. "But I thought you two might like a cup of tea."

"Wonderful!" Erskine became suddenly exuberant again. "Come in, Agent. We have just been discussing the food we miss from our homelands. You visited Bavaria briefly, which was your favorite?"

Peggy quirked a brow, but came in to set the tray on the desk. "I wasn't exactly there on a culinary tour." She cocked her head. "But I am partial to _strudel_."

Alice stayed in Erskine's office for another hour, sipping tea and delighting in his quick-witted, dry humor and his flashes of earnest idealism. But Erskine had genuine work to do, as did she, and they parted ways with a hug.

"_Auf Wiedersehen, _Doctor Erskine," Alice smiled. Not farewell, but _see you soon._

"_Auf Widersehen_, _Frä__u__lein _Moser," he responded. She liked that he never called her Siren. "_Sei vorsichtig_." [_Be careful_.]

"_Gleichfalls_," [_You too_], she smiled in return. With that she left, accompanied by an MP back to the sedan waiting outside.

* * *

Back in the office, Doctor Erskine eyed the closed door contemplatively before turning to Peggy. "You know, she could be considered an excellent candidate for-"

"No," Peggy said firmly. He frowned. "It's not that I don't agree with you, but… we don't need her on the front line. We need her behind enemy lines. Project Rebirth is still months away from being ready, and you know Phillips will never go for her anyway."

"Well he wants a big, beefy idiot. I'm not going to take his opinions into consideration."

Peggy just sighed at him. "You may keep looking for your ideal subject, doctor. But Alice cannot be your soldier."

"No," he said thoughtfully, then shot Peggy a knowing look. "But she's going to be yours."

She returned his gaze. "Yes, she is."

* * *

Excerpt of NBC television interview "Remembering Captain Rogers", with Peggy Carter and Howard Stark, March 1964

_"While we're on the topic of Project Rebirth," says interviewer Harry Godwin, "Mr Stark, how did you go about creating the machinery necessary for such a revolutionary process?"_

_Howard Stark leans back and smooths down the front of his silk tie. A new wedding ring glints on his finger and his smile flashes in the studio lights. "As much as I'd like to take this opportunity to exert my own brilliance, that's classified." To his side, Carter smiles slightly._

_"Fair enough. Let's go down another tack then. We all know the excellent choice that was made in choosing Steve Rogers for Project Rebirth, but we understand that he was one of a recruitment class of nine. Were any of the others considered?"_

_Stark snorts._

_Carter replies, shortly: "Ste- Captain Rogers proved himself through the recruitment process. It became clear he was the only real option."_

_"What about outside that recruitment class? Did the SSR - or yourself, or Doctor Erskine - ever consider any other candidates?"_

_Stark props his chin on his hand and mutters: "Doubt it. Phillips wanted a soldier."_

_"Ms Carter?" the interviewer prompts._

_A moment later, Peggy Carter answers the question. "No."_

* * *

Alice spent the afternoon aimlessly walking the streets of Brooklyn, as she had when she first arrived. But she barely noticed the buildings and signs she passed.

Long after evening had fallen, Alice didn't return to her hotel. She found herself knocking on Steve's door.

He opened it in tatty checkered pajamas and long socks, but his eyes were too alert for her to have woken him up. His brow furrowed. "Alice?"

She opened her mouth to speak, but had no idea what to say.

Steve looked at her, and understood, and held the door open wider. Alice walked inside.

Alice paced into the living room, Steve shadowing a few steps behind her. Soft shadows were cast by the single lit lamp on the table, giving the room a warm glow. Half-finished sketches lay on the table. She paused, looked around, and then sat on the carpet where they had once sat and talked about kissing each other. She tucked her legs up against herself and rested her shoulder against the arm of the couch.

Steve followed suit, carefully lowering himself to the ground. She noticed, with a pang of affection, that his pajama sleeves were too long for him.

For a few moments they sat in silence. They were too big now to fit comfortably on the patch of carpet between the couch and sofa, but it felt right. Steve's place always smelled like laundry starch and ink, even when his mom had been alive, and the familiar smell soothed the edge of Alice's nerves.

She stared down at the paisley floral pattern on the carpet. She stared, and tried to understand what her life had become. Steve sat silently beside her. He always knew what she needed from him: when she needed words, and when she needed silence.

After what felt like an age, she looked into Steve's eyes. "I'm keeping secrets from you."

His face shadowed. "I know."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"Yes," he said honestly. He leaned his head back against the couch. "But… I trust you. Always have." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "That's not it. I mean, I do trust you of course, but… I don't mind that you're keeping secrets because you're _here. _I never really let myself imagine this before. I can live with you keeping secrets because…" his eyes flicked to hers. She could see him turning over words in his mind, but when he finally spoke she could tell he'd swallowed what he really meant to say. "Because you're you."

Alice drew in a sharp breath at what he'd almost said, and her eyes itched. She stared at him until he shifted nervously.

She could see a world expanding before her. She could say _I love you, Steve Rogers, _and he would say it back. And she would stay here. They'd live out the war together here, in peace.

_Unless the war comes here_, said the Siren in her mind. _What then?_

Alice met Steve's eyes. He was waiting on her, blue eyes somber and hopeful. So she went for the messiest option possible.

Alice kept her _I love you _a secret. Instead she threw herself across the carpet and into Steve's arms. Her mouth slammed against his as his hands rose clever and shaking to her back, pressing her to him. One hand rose to the back of her head and carded through her hair, making her shiver. They held each other, and lost themselves in a kiss that became fiery and intense but which they both knew wasn't going anywhere.

Alice stayed with him. She didn't know how long they were entwined with each other, but she felt the moment when the intensity ebbed to warmth, to comfort. She shifted her head to lay on his chest and listened to his racing, stuttering heartbeat under his flannel pajamas. His arm curled over her back, and his feet slid against hers. She could feel him blushing, and it made her smile.

They fell asleep in each other's arms on the carpet. But they both knew that she wasn't going to stay.

* * *

Tønsberg, Norway

Johann Schmidt slid open the wooden panel of the box he'd just extracted from the church wall, and eerie blue light illuminated his face. He felt a thrill run through him as he eyed the contents. _At last._

"And the _Führer_ digs for trinkets in the desert," he breathed. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the box. They'd called him insane for chasing the remnants of gods.

Finally, he looked up to the haggard, scared old man with the angry eyes. "You have never seen this, have you?"

The man's glare deepened. "It is not for the eyes of ordinary men."

"Exactly." With effort Schmidt closed the box once more. When the light shut off, with it that unearthly _call_ he felt, he looked up to his men. "Give the order to open fire."

He strode down the steps and back toward the hole they'd blasted in the church wall, past the old man without a second thought. At least until:

"_Fool_." He turned. "You cannot control the power you hold! You will _burn_!"

Schmidt reached for the holster at his hip. "I already have."

The old man died easily. All mortals did.

* * *

Alice crept out in the dawn light without stirring Steve from sleep. She got back to her hotel to find a man in a dark suit waiting for her in the foyer. His eyes widened with relief when he saw her, then narrowed in annoyance.

"Ms Homer," he called, which instantly made her stiffen. "Do you know the way to the shipping port?"

"Why would I know something like that?" she responded to complete the code that she'd devised with Peggy.

His brow lowered. "You're needed, ma'am. Follow me."

The man drove her to the main SSR offices in Manhattan. It was a bright, cold day, and Alice felt like something was creeping up the back of her spine.

She made her own way to the elevator, and hit the button for the thirtieth floor. She wore the same clothes she'd had on yesterday, and she hoped Peggy wouldn't notice. _Who am I kidding_, she thought. _Of course she will._

She gave the bored receptionist the latest password, and was told in return to _head to the bullpen, sweetheart._

Alice strode alone down the corridor, and when she emerged into the nearly empty bullpen her heart constricted.

Colonel Phillips, Doctor Erskine and Peggy all stood around a paperwork laden desk, illuminated by the yellow office lights and wearing looks of concern. A few other analysts orbited around them, but the room was much emptier than normal.

Alice cleared her throat and the three of them looked up.

Peggy's lips pressed together. "Homer. We've received word that HYDRA just launched an incursion into Norway. We don't know the purpose, but it must have been something they really needed, to do it in defiance of the German command."

Alice crossed her arms. HYDRA was the SSR's first concern, and them invading a country without the rest of the German Army was suspicious indeed. "I see." But then she glanced around at their faces again and she _actually _saw. Her breath stilled in her chest. "You're sending me back."

Erskine's lips thinned and he looked between Peggy and Phillips, but didn't say anything.

Peggy met Alice's eyes. "We are." Alice straightened her shoulders as Peggy continued: "You have five hours to tie up any loose ends here, and then you'll be on a ship back to France. We've arranged for you to be spotted on a train back into Vienna from the holiday region of the French Alps, and there's a few witnesses set up to spread the rumor of your two-month long sojourn in a holiday resort. Following that, we'll arrange a meeting with your new handler."

Alice nodded numbly. _Any loose ends. _Like the piece of her heart probably still sleeping in a small apartment in Brooklyn. Like a young boy in Harlem who she was supposed to be having dinner with tonight.

Her heart pounded, and she was ashamed to admit to herself that it wasn't all fear. She… wasn't excited, but she was _ready. _These months back had been wonderful, but she felt keenly aware of everything she'd left behind. The people left behind. Everything left unfinished.

She let out a shaky breath. "Okay."

Erskine straightened. "_Frä__u__lein, _you're not a puppet any longer," he murmured. He met her eyes. "You have a choice."

"I do," she replied in a decisive tone. She strode over to him and took his hand. "I'll have some _Lebkuchen _cookies for you in Berlin."

He smiled despite the concern in his eyes, and squeezed her hand in return. "_Auf Wiedersehen._"

Colonel Phillips cleared his throat. "Doctor, the project files…?"

Erskine blinked. "Ah yes, I'll get those now." He met Alice's eyes once more, dipped his chin in a nod, and then strode away. Alice lifted her fingers in a wave before he disappeared.

When she looked back, she found Colonel Phillips standing right in front of her. His jaw was clenched and his eyes serious. He held his hand out for a handshake.

When she took it he gripped her hand, hard, and said: "I might not trust you, Moser, but I sure as shit know that you're about to head into a hell of a lot of danger. Keep smart, keep alert, and most importantly" – he yanked her in by her hand until they were almost nose to nose. She could smell his aftershave. "Keep your damn mouth shut about us."

"Yes sir," Alice said, proud of herself for keeping her voice steady and not wincing at his grip.

He held her fast for another moment longer, eyes flicking across her face, before he released her and walked off with a gruff _hm._

Alice straightened her coat and turned to Peggy. "_Men_," she muttered. Her hand ached.

The corner of Peggy's lip curled, before she turned serious again.

Alice sighed. "Peggy, I…" she shook her head. "I want to say thank you, but it doesn't seem enough."

Peggy smiled at her. "Alice, you've got five hours. Don't worry about me, you'll see me at the port." She cocked her head. "I'd tell you not to tell anyone you're leaving, but I know you won't listen and we don't want anyone filing a missing persons report on you." She jerked her chin. "Go. Say goodbye."

Alice hesitated a moment longer. She wanted to say _something _to Peggy, to somehow acknowledge everything that the other woman had done for her, but Peggy was, as usual, right. _Five hours._

Alice nodded once at Peggy and then strode out of the room.

* * *

SSR Final Training Report by Agent Carter: _Project Homer _(March 10th, 1942). Archived by Catherine Laurey, SHIELD Archivist

_CLASSIFIED_

_Regardless of the change in situation abroad, it is my opinion that Agent Homer is ready for active duty. The agent has shown themselves capable in infiltration, combat, communications, demolitions, rebel training, manipulation and extraction. Due to the shortened timeframe of re-infiltration I make the following recommendations: Homer must have freedom of movement in their placement, with a strong support network, and a reasonable modicum of trust. This should be simplified by the handler I recommended earlier in the week._

_Homer's final briefing will include orders to focus on HYDRA but also to uncover actionable intelligence about the wider Nazi network for the SSR (specifically: character intelligence about leaders, troop movements, political events, meetings, and potential weaknesses). In the future I recommend giving Homer a general structure of command, but also allowing the agent to work under their own guidance. Homer knows what they are capable of finding, and what is important._

_Should the above recommendations be accepted I will pass on detailed orders to Homer at the exfiltration point. Please advise._

* * *

Alice went to Tom first. By the time she made it to Harlem on the train it was past nine, so Alice went to Tom's school and told the ladies at the front office that she was Tom Johnson's private nurse and she needed to speak with him about a health issue.

"No, it can't wait until this afternoon, I'm afraid," she said with a polite smile. "If you wouldn't mind…? Yes, thank you. Tell him it's Marie Matthias waiting for him."

Tom's brow furrowed in confusion when he saw Alice waiting for him in the front office, but he wisely didn't say anything. He hadn't bothered to tidy his wild mop of dark hair, and he wore his school uniform with an easy grace that reminded her of Matthias. Alice tried to swallow the lump in her throat. Tom waited until she had guided him outside into the cold sunshine to say:

"Alice, what's going on?"

She just shook her head at him and led him further away. She didn't look at him again until they sat on a park bench around the corner from the school.

"What is it?" Tom asked in a low, worried voice. "Something's happened, hasn't it?"

Alice realized that she had no idea what to say to him. She opened and closed her mouth.

His brow furrowed. "Did something… is Steve okay?"

That unstuck her tongue. "Steve's fine, he's fine, don't worry." She pressed her lips together. It hadn't quite sunk in, what she was about to do. "Tom," she began. "I love you so, so much. I'm really proud of you, I hope you know that. I wish… I wish I could stay to see you grow up and to keep going out for coffee after school like we've been doing-"

"You're leaving," he realized, and a hurt expression flooded his face. His eyes darted. "What happened? Is it something I did? Is it because I made you sing that one time? Did you-"

"No, no," Alice hushed as tears sprang to her eyes. Why did she keep doing everything wrong? She leaned over to wrap one arm around him, and pressed her lips to the top of his head. Tom softened into her hold, his limbs loose. She felt wetness against her forearm. "It's not your fault, Tom. It's never you. I came back for _you_, you have to know that." She realized now that that was the truth. She could have stayed in Europe, or England, but she'd chosen to travel back across the ocean for one thing. Well, two things. "But… I can't stay."

"Where are you going?" the boy in her arms sniffled. Alice didn't reply. A moment later: "Right, you can't tell me. Just like everything else you can't tell me." He straightened out of her embrace and looked at her with big, hurt eyes. "What are you so _scared _of, Alice?"

"I'm scared of exactly what every other big sister is scared of," she murmured. "I'm scared to see you hurt." She squeezed his hand. "I promise that one day, I will tell you every secret I have. I'll pinky swear on it if you like." She held up her little finger.

At least it made him laugh. Tom took her pinky in his, and they held them tight for a moment.

He eventually murmured: "Y'know, mom and dad would be proud of you too, Alice. I didn't say so before, but it's true."

Tears spilled from her eyes. No one could make her cry like Tom.

This time he reached in to hug her, and when his arms banded around her Alice held him back so tightly she was sure she'd accidentally crush the breath out of his lungs. She didn't care that this was a public street with people walking past.

"I'm going to miss you so much," Tom muttered into her shoulder. His grip on her was surprisingly strong.

"I always miss you," Alice replied. She could feel seconds slipping away. "I… I have to go."

He didn't say _okay_, but he did let her go. They both stood.

"Make sure you tell Steve." Tom didn't meet her eye. "I don't be the one to tell him."

"I will," she promised. She reached out to put her hand on his cheek, and his dark eyes met hers. "Don't be in such a hurry to grow up, Tom," she teased. "Take your time."

Before she could convince herself to stay, she turned and walked away. It felt so much harder than that day she left him crying at the port after their parents died. She realized, when he was out of sight and she was on the train back to Brooklyn, that he'd never asked when she was coming back.

* * *

Extract from Tom Johnson Diary Entry, March 10 1942

_... I don't want to forget what she looks like again. I've got a photo of her now, thanks to that photo booth at the arcade, but I don't want that to be all I have. I don't really remember mom and dad specifically, but I do remember how things used to be at home. They knew Alice was special, too, and complicated, and they loved her all the same. I know I can do that too. But that doesn't stop me being scared._

_One day she'll tell me everything. I can wait until then._

* * *

Steve was at home when Alice knocked. It was a relief, because she didn't want to have to track him down at work and cause a scene there.

He opened the door to see her standing on his doorstep, and his eyes flew open in surprise and something like relief.

"I thought you left," he murmured. It wasn't accusatory.

"I did," Alice replied. It felt like days since she'd slid out from under his arm and crept out of the apartment in the dim dawn light, not mere hours. "I mean…" she shook her head. "Steve… I need to tell you something. It's not about last night, but…"

He swung the door wider. "Come in."

Alice followed him inside, and declined his offer for tea. She knew she didn't have time for that. The thought made her heart race. She noticed that Steve was moving stiffly, and she realized that sleeping on the hard floor last night had probably not been that good for his joints. A flash of acute guilt pierced through the deeper, underlying sense of guilt of what she was about to tell him.

They stood opposite each other in the living room, her in the same clothes as last night and he in fresh clothes for work. He looked smart in them, which was slightly distracting.

Alice let out a breath. It seemed every time she found herself alone in Steve's apartment with him, she had some confession choked up in her throat. Last night she'd wanted so desperately to be _honest_ with someone, to be close to Steve without all her secrets in the way, and it had mostly worked. But now she felt nothing but _urgency_. And the oncoming quakes of heartbreak.

She clenched her jaw and decided to just spit it out.

"Steve. I have to leave."

He frowned. "You just got here."

"No, I mean… New York. I have to leave."

His eyes flew wide open. "What? Why?"

She'd been expecting it, but the flash of hurt in his face put a crack in her heart. "I-"

He moved towards her, his normally serious expression now frantic. "Alice, New York is your _home_, what do you-"

"New York is my home," she agreed. She took his warm hands to soften the blow. "But I can't be here anymore."

He didn't take his hands out of hers, but she felt him draw away. "Is this… because of…?"

She _almost _sighed, but resisted. What was it about her that made the people she loved doubt themselves? "This isn't about last night. I don't regret that, not for a minute. I…" she swallowed to prevent any words that she couldn't take back.

His brow furrowed. "Where are you going?"

Alice hesitated. Tom had accepted silence for an answer to that question, but she knew from the look in Steve's eyes that she'd have to say something. "I… I'm going back."

"Not to Europe," he said, aghast. "That's too dangerous, Alice."

She couldn't bear it. She leaned in and pressed her lips to his out of a selfish desire to stop both of their hearts from falling apart. She lit up when he responded by moving against her, one hand in her hair and the other on her waist as if trying to keep her there.

"I'll write you," she said breathlessly when she pulled away. "You remember the ciphers we used as kids?"

"Of course," he replied, trying to catch his breath, "but Alice-"

"Use those ciphers every time you write to me, no matter what you're saying. Sign them…" her breath hitched. "Sign them as _Ulysses._" His expression softened. "Here's how you can get in touch with me." She pressed a folded note into his hand. She'd written it on the train: instructions for a communication line via the Thomas Cook office in Lisbon, but with more reroutes and aliases to avoid the censors. "Don't let anyone else see this."

His fingers folded over the note and he pressed his forehead to hers. "We're not kids anymore. This isn't a game, Alice."

"I know," she murmured. His dark blue eyes had always seen her so much more clearly than anyone else, and she was terrified he could see what she was going back to Europe to do. "I'm not playing." She bit her lip. "Tell Bucky for me?"

He frowned. "When do you leave?"

Her stomach jolted. "Today."

His brows came together in that distressed expression she remembered so vividly from when she'd told him she was leaving the last time, at her mom's funeral.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. As she held him, safe and warm inside his apartment, Alice distantly wondered if she would ever see him again. It wasn't likely. She wondered if he sensed that, if that was why he held her so close.

Steve's hands tightened on her back. "How can I let you go again?" The words were quiet, barely above a whisper.

Alice had a hand on the side of his neck, and she traced her thumb along the underside of his jaw. "I don't know," she breathed. She had no idea how she was going to summon the strength to walk away. "But we… we have to."

"At least tell me _why_," he pleaded.

She closed her eyes. She could feel him watching her, each minute twitch of her expression. "You said you trusted me with my secrets," she murmured. "Trust me with this one, Steve. Please. I know it's a lot to ask."

His sigh whispered against her lips. "Of course I trust you. I always have."

And strangely, it was that which gave her the strength to curl her fingers away from him and step away from his warmth and strength. It was a cold shock, but she didn't fall back into him.

Both of their eyes opened, and they stared at each other.

She knew she couldn't make herself utter the word _goodbye._

It felt strangely like a dream when Alice turned and walked away. She could hear him following her. Her eyes dragged over the apartment as she left, memorizing each detail.

She was almost to the door when she stopped in her tracks.

_Tell him. _The few times Jilí had cried in front of Alice after Franz died, she'd wept because of what they _hadn't _done. Alice remembered her friend's broken whisper: _I wish I'd told him more often how I felt about him._

Alice wished she'd thanked Jilí for saving her life with her friendship. She wished she'd thanked Matthias for being her father, even though it put his very life at risk, and she wished she'd told her mom how proud she was of her bravery. She didn't want to live another regret.

Alice looked back. "I love you, Steve."

His eyes widened and his mouth opened, but she turned and left before he could speak. Because she knew that no matter what he said, it would make her stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guten Abend, gute Nacht isn't on the Siren playlist, but here's a good version by Gerphil, and one on Spotify by Andreas Scholl if you're interested. You'll know the tune :)


	31. Chapter Twenty Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've made some edits to chapter 10 (Letters Across the Ocean 5) in regards to Alice's opera career. It doesn't change a lot in the grand scheme of things but the lovely beckmessering on AO3 pointed out that 19 year olds aren't exactly running around singing Brünnhilde (the peak of soprano performance), and helped me find a more appropriate opera for Alice to be performing at that point in time. I'm pretty happy with the results!

[Translated] Clipping from _The Vienna Times_ Society Section, March 1942

_... and if the social mixer invitation sheets of the past week have been any indication, it's clear that the Siren is back amongst society after her personal hiatus since the beginning of the year. The Siren has spent the last few months at a holiday resort in the French Alps, and this writer isn't alone in wondering what this means for the stage presence she'd cultivated under her uncle Joseph Huber's guidance. Vienna's performance halls could certainly benefit from her voice again, but the question remains: what is talent without a steady guiding hand? In further news, our society correspondent Simon Bauer speculates on the possibility of the normally shy Siren having found a new beau over the winter..._

* * *

March, 1942

Alice first met her handler at a party.

She sat near the center of a dazzlingly decorated ballroom amidst a burr of conversations and laughter as she sipped a condensation-speckled cocktail. A gold-sequined dress pooled around her feet as she sat with her ankles crossed. She curved her mauve-painted lips and told a joke which had her retinue of tuxedoed men and gowned ladies bursting into laughter.

Her return to Vienna had been a whirlwind. On her return from her "sojourn in the French Alps", she arrived back to her uncle's – _her _– dust-laden house and dove back into the old social circles. She invited most of her late uncle's friends and connections over for tea as soon as she could, and found that she'd been sorely missed at parties and performances alike while she'd been away.

She'd been missed by others, too. The night returned she crept out into Vienna's alleys dressed as Al, and met Hugo at his apartment downtown. He'd wept when he slid open his window to see her standing in the alley below, and said _I thought you weren't coming back_.

Through Hugo and Vano, she found out that her network was stronger than ever. They'd branched out into a connection with the Polish resistance, which had militarized. The network in Vienna had lost people, though. Hugo's sister Marie had died of pneumonia in the winter. Others had vanished. Alice cried with her friends, but in the morning they all got to work again.

In the light of day, as Alice Moser, she strengthened all her old contacts in the music industry. She played coy, but within a few days everyone knew what she had returned for. _The Siren is going to return to the stage and the radio waves, _went the rumor, _to honor her late, patriotic uncle._

She'd been working so long and so hard, day and night, that she was mostly able to keep her mind off the aching chasm in her chest for what she had left behind.

And now she was following one of her very first instructions from the SSR.

The event tonight was a social gathering for a politician's birthday, with all the big names of Austria and Germany. Alice could see no less than three major Nazi generals from her seat.

She hadn't come alone. She'd invited a retinue of her uncle's old friends who she intended to charm. She didn't have to try very hard. Half of them were middle-aged military officers and politicians who just needed a pretty woman to smile at them and laugh at their stories (being very careful not to alarm their wives too much, of course), and the other half were professionals in the music industry who wanted nothing more than for Alice to put out a new record. She'd been dropping hints in that regard all night.

And all night she'd had people from the music industry and the Propaganda Department approaching her left and right. More people than she'd expected.

The influx of interest had been explained to her by a Propaganda Department producer half an hour ago. Alice had agreed to a dance with him, and inquired politely about the latest in the Reich's music.

"All our artists have fled or gone quiet, the cowards," the flax-haired man had growled, his hand tightening on hers for a moment, before he realized that he might have come off a bit too strong. He avoided her eyes and led her off the dance floor a moment later.

Alice had taken a sip of her drip and turned to smile at him. "I'm no coward, I assure you."

Now, Alice sat back in her chair and held court over her retinue, barely paying attention to the nonsense she was speaking, and let her gaze drift across the room. _Where is he? _The night had been an exhausting, frustrating affair despite her successes in networking, and she wanted to go home. But this was a _mission._

At that moment, she saw one of her old radio producers cutting across the room toward her with a man she'd never met before by his side.

Alice let her gaze slide disinterestedly over them and hid the thrill of energy that went down her spine. _Finally._

She was talking to the general's wife beside her about stockings when someone cleared their throat behind her. She turned to find the radio producer smiling down at her.

"_Frä__u__lein _Moser, it's such a wonderful pleasure to see you again," he reached out to take her hand. "I'd like to introduce an acquaintance of mine. This is _Herr _Otto Klein. We know each other from when I used to work in Berlin, _Herr_ Klein was agent to many of the talented artists we hosted on the radio."

"Oh?" Alice turned to face the stranger. She was seated, but she could tell he probably stood about a head taller than her. He looked to be in his late forties, with a slight balding patch on the crown of his head, thick mustache, and serious dark eyes behind a pair of thick glasses. He wore a fine charcoal suit, nothing near the grandeur of the other wealthy tuxedos in the room, but he looked professional. He reached out to take her hand with a firm grip.

"A pleasure to meet you, _Frä__u__lein _Moser," Otto Klein said with a quick incline of his head. "I have followed your career from Berlin for many years now. Your work from the spring of 1939 was my particular favorite."

Alice arched an eyebrow. "Even my _Gipfel _aria?"

He released her hand. "I found the melodies enchanting."

Alice affected a shy smile down at her lap at the exchange of codewords. "Say, gentlemen, why don't you take a seat here with me and my friends?"

Otto Klein and the radio producer took the seats recently vacated by a _Gestapo _official and his pregnant wife, and they all got to talking. They spoke mostly of what had become of German music, and the difficulties of booking talent in wartime. Most of Alice's retinue were connected with the music world in some way, so the conversation quickly became actually quite fascinating. Herr Klein was a serious, gruff sort of man, but it was clear he knew what he was talking about. He mentioned artists he had worked with before (Alice didn't have to feign surprise when he mentioned _Marlene Dietrich_) and he expressed a desire to _support the Reich the best way he knew how: through music._

As the number of socialites in the ballroom dwindled, Alice rested her chin in her hand and said. "_Herr _Klein, I would be honored if you would visit my home for a cup of coffee or two tomorrow. Your stories about working in Berlin are fascinating, and I wish to hear more about your connections in Germany." She heard several of her retinue – producers who had been very obviously trying to have her sign a contract – audibly sigh.

Klein gave her a half bow from his seat. "Certainly, _Frä__u__lein._" And that was all he said.

They spoke at their table for another half hour before Klein stood up to mingle with others in the ballroom. Alice waited another ten minutes, then announced that she was dead tired and off to bed. _I've already met everyone interesting_, she laughed.

In the car on her way back to her apartment, Alice rubbed her sore feet and thought of the future.

* * *

When Herr Klein arrived at Alice's house the next day, he came alone. His eyebrows rose slightly when Alice answered the door instead of a servant (all of her guests had been surprised at that), but he followed her into the sitting room with nothing but a word of greeting. Alice sensed his eyes travelling across the tapestries and oil paintings, the richly upholstered furniture and the thick carpets.

When Alice gestured for him to take a seat, he remained standing. "Are we alone, _Frä__u__lein_?" he asked with a significant glance around.

She smoothed down her grey housedress. "I fired all the servants."

That made him scowl behind his thick glasses. "We'll hire some new ones." He brushed right past the moment. "You were briefed before you returned to Vienna?"

Alice nodded. Peggy had taken her aside at the port in Brooklyn to tell her everything they knew about HYDRA and give her mission parameters for her return to Vienna. Peggy had also shown her a photo of Otto Klein. _I can personally verify his trustworthiness, _Peggy had explained. _I would not have been able to rescue Doctor Erskine without this man's assistance, and the SSR believes that by placing the two of you together, you have the best chance of success._

Alice trusted Peggy, but that didn't help with the wariness she felt about having this strange, surly-faced man in her house. Last night she'd been the Siren, smiling and charming, but that façade had dropped between them.

"Excellent," Klein said. "We need to move quickly since your recognition as an artist dies a little more each day that you don't perform, and we have much work to do. I hear you've a network here in Vienna?"

It was frightening to talk about so openly here, in the heart of it all. "Yes. And elsewhere."

"We'll get to work with them, too." Klein cricked his neck and reached into his briefcase to pull out a thick file of papers. At Alice's alarmed look he said: "Relax, this is all music details. I don't write anything _else _down."

He straightened his tie and began laying out papers on the sitting room table between them. "I've tentatively booked a spot for you this weekend at the _Volksoper Wien_, but after that we'll need to move. I'm thinking Berlin first, then a tour of Germany and Austria to cement your roots. That will give us the opportunity to lay out more of a network as well. We've been tasked with accumulating all the information we can about HYDRA's incursion into Norway and their next plans, and setting up resistance networks where we can: couriers will be especially important."

He was _still _moving. "I've got a dress fitting booked for you this afternoon and a recording studio for tomorrow morning. While you're at the dress fitting I have an appointment with the representative from the Propaganda Department-"

"Shouldn't I go to that as well?" Alice hadn't moved since he first began speaking.

He looked up as he sorted paperwork into piles on the table. "Why?"

She spread her hands. "They're our closest link to the German government hierarchy at this point. Oughtn't we both make friends where we can?"

He frowned. "This is a business meeting. We can make all the friends we need when you're singing in Berlin." With that he gestured to a single paper on the table. "Sign here and here to officially hire me on as your manager, and we can get started."

For a moment Alice thought of protesting. The pulse in her neck pounded. It was all too fast, she'd thought she'd have longer before being thrust into the limelight again.

But she'd read this man in the short time he'd been here. She didn't trust him (not even after the code words and Peggy's personal verification), but she could see that under the gruffness and haste he had the same _drive _to put a stop to all this. He didn't feel the need to prove himself to her. He just wanted to get to work. Alice could trust in that, for now.

So when he looked up at her impatiently she just nodded, leaned over to take his pen, and swirled out her signature on the papers.

"Let's get started."

* * *

The next few days seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Alice was rushed through a dress fitting that she barely paid attention to, signed more paperwork with Klein's company, hired staff to take care of her house while she was away, and began preparing new songs. The next morning on the way to the recording studio she and Klein levelled with each other about what resources they had at their disposal. Klein lifted an eyebrow occasionally as she described her network and connections (without mentioning names, of course), but other than that didn't express surprise. In return he told her about a small collection of people in Berlin opposed to Nazi power, and his connection to the SSR. He was a facilitator: hiding agents and fugitives, providing resources for missions, organizing information channels.

"I can see why they wanted us to join our resources," he said grudgingly.

Klein described his plan for the next weeks and months as they exchanged notes about music in an office at the recording studio. Everything he said made Alice's scalp tingle as she realized the scope of what she'd agreed to do.

"You've been a star for a couple of years," he told her. "Our job now is to make you an _icon._"

Alice appreciated his efficiency. The way he approached producers and musicians was almost ruthless, but she also realized as they workshopped songs together that he was a true creative. She observed him out of the corner of her eye, more habit than suspicion.

With Klein, Alice connected her network in Austria with the SSR's resources. They were still hiding and protecting people, but now they went after information with a targeted focus: _have you heard anything about a group called HYDRA? What about troop movements through the Rhinelands? What's happening at the border to Switzerland? _They also focused more efforts on sabotage through a few teams in the countryside who darted out of the night to disrupt and inconvenience the German army, before disappearing into the mountains. Alice and Klein set up cover stories for plants the SSR planned to send into Austria.

Within a week, Alice and Klein were on a train to Berlin. Sitting in a private cabin with a lapful of song lyrics, Alice's mind whirled with plans. They'd already begun setting up more of a network in Germany, and in Berlin they planned to arrange information couriers to Switzerland and France. Alice had realized early on that _she _was one of those couriers. Her role was to travel around, meet with people to learn what they knew, and carry it back to Switzerland and France. She'd already been put in contact with Austrians who had fled for London. The thought of it all was intimidating, but not overwhelming – because Alice realized she knew how to do this. She'd been training for this for years.

Peggy had also tasked Alice with training resistance members in sabotage, covert operations, and information gathering, and though she'd begun that process in Vienna it wouldn't really come up until they traveled to France.

Alice eyed Klein – serious, eyes on his paperwork – out of the corner of her eye as she mouthed the lyrics to her latest setlist. She'd written a couple of these songs on the ship over to France: not explicitly pro-Nazi, but definitely patriotic. One was an ode to a sweetheart far away, fighting a mental and physical battle but persevering; and the other was a rousing chorus about fighting to do everything one could. She'd drawn on her opera background for that one. Alice had gone to the effort to make them _good. _So many of the propaganda songs were like advertisement jingles: catchy, but not _moving._

When she'd shown her ideas to Klein at the recording studio he'd raised an eyebrow, then given the go ahead to the band to learn the music. _A song for the men fighting and a song for the ladies at home, _he'd said succinctly after reading through the lyrics. _This'll sell._

Alice had tried not to let it offend her, because that should be exactly what she wanted.

* * *

That evening, Alice and Klein talked over their plan to forge connections to HYDRA as an assistant (who doubled as one of Klein's couriers – about ten percent of his management company were SSR plants) flicked a makeup brush over Alice's face. Alice normally did her own hair and makeup for performances in silence, so sitting still and letting the young woman do it for her as Klein spoke put her on edge. They were squeezed into a dressing room bursting at the seams with costumes that stunk like cigarette smoke.

"HYDRA is secluded," Klein was saying, "they've been pulling back from the main German leadership since Schmidt's accident. Our best shot is to learn about HYDRA from other sources, as they aren't exactly going to many parties these days. That being said, I've heard that the German leadership is trying to coax Schmidt back to Berlin to reaffirm his loyalty."

Alice closed her eyes as the assistant – Heidi – swept an opalescent powder over her eyelids. "I've heard bits and pieces about them from other departments," she murmured. "And no, I don't think they're interested in blending with German society at all. I was intending to forge more friendships in the main German command before attempting to befriend them. What are your thoughts?"

"I agree," Klein said, though it was grudging. "We need more name recognition. I want every German child to know the name _the Siren._"

Alice shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and Heidi let out a hiss of breath as she darted to fix her dress.

"You mustn't crumple the material, _Frä__u__lein._"

"Sorry," Alice muttered mutinously. She'd never worn a dress so irritatingly fragile before.

Klein watched her with his arms folded across his chest. He was reserved with his expressions, but Alice had been getting the sense he might not like her very much. She didn't mind, as long as he worked with her.

Alice met his eyes. "What?"

He cocked his head. "Your uncle loved the system too much to truly exploit it," he said in a lower tone. "You don't get to the top by brownnosing officials and catering to their every whim. You get to the top by giving them exactly what they've always wanted, but have been too afraid to ask for." He nodded. "Heidi?"

"I'm done, _Herr _Klein." Heidi drew away, makeup brush tucked behind her ear, and nodded decisively. "You can look now, _Frä__u__lein._"

Alice stood, turned to the floor-length dressing room mirror, and _understood._

Before, when her uncle had been alive, she'd fit into the mold. She'd worn performance dresses from the boutique stores that everyone else shopped at, had worn her hair and done her makeup as simply as possible because she hadn't _cared _what her audiences in Austria and Germany thought of her. It had been her voice that made her extraordinary.

But Klein and Heidi had transformed her.

Alice was dressed entirely in white: a floor length gown that flowed and fluttered with satin, with two wide sleeves that draped from her arms like wings. The dress clung to her waist, swooping down at the neck just enough to bare her pale skin but not so far that she could be accused in the papers of being _unwholesome. _The skirt parted from just above her knee to where it brushed the floor. Alice moved and the dress _rippled, _absorbing the white light from around the mirror.

Heidi had curled Alice's white-blonde hair, but not as tightly as Alice usually did it; her hair seemed to wisp about her face. And her face: her eyes were shadowed somehow in an indigo dusk that reminded her of the night sky. Her cheekbones seemed more prominent, with just the slightest hint of rouge to give her life, and her lips were a full, dark red that reminded her of Peggy. Her green eyes pierced from amongst the contrast of light and dark.

Alice was used to using her appearance to convince and distract, but she couldn't stop her mouth from dropping open at the woman in the mirror.

Klein had made her look untouchable. Strong. And utterly distinctive. She knew in that instant that there was no one else in the world who looked like her. She swallowed.

"You're on in two minutes," said Klein. He didn't ask her if she was ready.

Alice inclined her chin, resisting the urge to touch her hair to see if it felt as soft as it looked. She didn't look like this for _her _benefit. This was a weapon like any other.

Tonight, the Siren returned to the stage. Tonight would determine how far and how strong her and Klein's reach could be throughout Hitler's Third Reich. Tonight, Alice made her mark.

* * *

When the velvet curtain rose to reveal Alice to her audience, she heard a collective sigh. When the swastika banner rose red and vibrant behind her they rose to give her a standing ovation before she'd even begun. Dazzling light enveloped her.

Music swelled.

Alice opened her mouth and sang her audience into a tear-streamed silence.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Siren Song: a snapshot of one of Europe's most prominent musicians_' by Roger Howe, 1982

_... in early April of 1942, the Siren returned triumphantly to the stage under a new management company, Klein Productions. Sources from the time indicate that her return was a much-desired breath of fresh air amidst mid-war austerity. One writer stated "Germany expects bigger and greater things from our magnificent songstress, who has reappeared like the sun after a long night". This marked the beginning of a new era in the Siren's career. She'd grown in talent and in shrewdness, and she'd reached a new level: no longer a student opera performer, or the shy and retiring belle of Vienna's stages, but a national and cultural icon._

* * *

Brooklyn

"She just _left_?" Bucky repeated for what must have been the sixth or seventh time since they'd arrived at the diner.

Bucky, Steve, and Tom sat at the counter in the nearly empty diner, each sitting with their cup of coffee but not drinking it. Tom leaned his head against his hand, looking tired, and Steve weathered Bucky's incredulity with patience. Bucky had only just gotten back on army furlough.

Steve had told him everything on the phone the night that Alice had left, and Bucky had had all these questions then, but he still needed answers. Steve got it. He didn't fully understand either.

Bucky made an expansive gesture with his hands. "_Why_?"

"She wouldn't say," Tom replied, then lifted his cup to take a sip. The thirteen year old looked older than he really was. "She knows it's dangerous, though."

Steve closed his eyes. He'd barely slept in the past three weeks since Alice had left.

Bucky shook his head. "Why would she do that? She was safe here, she could have started over again here. I know she wouldn't have had all the comforts she did in Vienna, but-"

"I think," Steve said, with his eyes still shut, "There's a lot she never told us."

He sensed Bucky's eyes on him. "Steve…"

Steve shook his head and opened his eyes. He half-smiled at his friend. Alice leaving had been eating him up, and maybe he was stupid for trusting in her so much, but _Alice Moser loved him. _He knew she wouldn't have left without a damn good reason. "I don't know why she left," he said. "But I think she'll tell us when she can."

"She promised me she would," Tom chipped in.

Bucky's eyebrows converged in a scowl. "How can you both sit there and just… just accept it? Maybe Alice doesn't know what's best, have you considered that?"

Steve shot him an affronted look, but Tom just looked amused.

"Even if she doesn't," Tom said wryly. "How are you planning on stopping her?" He gestured around. "She's probably back right now."

Bucky tugged his hair. "Could we talk to someone? The embassy, or… or-"

"Buck," Steve sighed. "Alice is going to come back."

"How d'you know that?"

_I love you, Steve. _"I just know."

That actually seemed to settle Bucky. Bucky had always known that Steve _understood _Alice in a way that he didn't. He loved her as his best friend, but she was a goddamn mystery and a menace most of the time.

He dropped his head on his forearms. "I just… I'm so _confused_." He looked up, and saw in Tom and Steve's tired eyes that they didn't have answers for him. "She really just up and left us all without a reason, huh?"

"Yep," Tom answered. "It must have been a good reason."

"The people," Steve said. They both glanced over to him and he met their eyes. "There's no way Alice would leave anyone alone in a corner with no way out. I might not know the details, but that must be why she went back."

"Let's just hope she doesn't back _herself _into a corner in the process," Bucky grumbled.

Steve barely heard him. He was already thinking about how he was going to get over there and help those people too.

* * *

Excerpt from '_Selling Fascism' _by Catherine Bomer (2001), p. 12

_Founded in 1933 (during peacetime), Joseph Goebbels' Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (_ _Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda) never sought to hide its intentions: to promote Nazi idealism and control throughout Germany and abroad. When Hitler became Chancellor, the Ministry had total control over the country's press and culture._

_They sold the cult-like obsession with Adolf Hitler, and used every tool at their disposal to denigrate Jews and other minorities while bolstering the ideal of Aryanism._

_The ministry had seven divisions: (1) Administration and legal, (2) Mass rallies; public health; youth; race, (3) Broadcasting, (4) National and foreign press, (5) Films and film censorship, (6) Art, music, and theater, (7) Protection against counter-propaganda, both foreign and domestic._

_Under Goebbel's meticulous planning and virulently antisemitic and anti-modernist leadership, the Propaganda produced a barrage of Nazi advertisements, radio shows, posters, music, theater, and films, using many prominent artists to further their cause. In 1940, John Gunther wrote that Goebbels was "the cleverest of all the Nazis", but would never become a true leader because "everybody hates him"._

* * *

Berlin

"Truly, _Fra__u_ Siren, it was a true honor to hear you sing tonight. You have the voice of angels themselves."

Alice blushed at the praise and ducked her head in a laugh. "You know, I can never get used to such praise no matter how much I hear it."

The socialite who was _still _holding her hand smiled genially. "Then we'll have to praise you all the more, to get you used to it! You're a rising star, _Frä__u__lein._"

Alice beamed and managed to wrangle her hand free.

It was another night, another party, drenched with light from the gas-lamp chandeliers and abuzz with conversation and clinking glasses. Alice was freshly powdered and perfumed after her performance for the gathered guests, and beginning her rounds. She'd been going to these kinds of parties for years now, but she no longer found herself bored and heartsick as the evenings wore on. She was _focused._

Weeks had passed since her debut performance in the heart of Germany, which had launched her into the papers and into the eyes of the German elite as the new darling of the stage. Klein, true to his word, seemed to have turned her into an icon overnight. Her name graced newspaper headlines, her face was illustrated on a ten-foot tall poster outside the radio station, her latest records were flying off the shelves and into the homes of Nazi loyalists. It was the kind of recognition she'd secretly longed for as a child, but she celebrated it for completely different reasons now: this fame was a weapon.

Klein had arranged a formal relationship between the Siren and the Nazi Propaganda Department, securing a record deal and making her voice a regular fixture on the airwaves. She had security clearance now for buildings she hadn't had before. She and Klein were the toast of every party and social gathering they wished to attend across the Reich, which opened doors and mouths. They'd been travelling across the German heartlands, from performance halls to darkened back alleys.

Between the two of them, they'd set up a regular information funnel back to the SSR. They'd had little in the way of feedback – they were still setting up contact lines – but they'd been able to give the SSR information from within the heart of Berlin. Most of it so far was about the Russian front, which would no doubt be useful all the same. In the process Alice had found out that a fresh wave of Jews had been deported from the occupied Soviet Union territories and sent to… wherever they sent them. It wasn't information anyone could do anything about for now, but she made sure it was heard.

Alice had also kept up her correspondence with Tom, Steve, and Bucky. She hadn't told Klein. The boys (_her boys_, as she had come to think of them) were understandably somber and full of questions for her which she simply couldn't answer, so she distracted them with irrelevant (and sometimes fabricated) details from her life, and a million questions for them. They talked about the news, and school lessons, and music, and nothing important at all. Steve had taken to signing his letters differently: _Love, Steve._

As Alice pulled away from the clingy socialite and continued to make her rounds of the room, she realized that one of Steve's latest letters was still at the forefront of her mind. He'd told her that just recently, the US Government had set up "relocation centers" and sent Japanese-American citizens to them by _force. _It was a paranoid, fear-driven reaction to Pearl Harbor, and reading Steve's description of it had made Alice's stomach sink to the bottom of her gut.

Steve was angry about it, of course, and had gotten in a fight with a police officer who came to notify the Takeyama family in his building. Bucky's black eye hadn't faded yet.

Alice had barely known what to say in reply. She wanted to say _I thought things were different at home_, which she knew they were, they _had to be_, but hearing about that had made her so, so afraid. What if this terrible reality she was living in now wasn't temporary? What if it had spread across the globe and there was no escape?

So she'd written to ask after the Takeyamas, and hoped that the boys were okay after their fight. About the forced relocations, she'd had just one thing to say:

_We have to be better than this._

Alice swallowed at the thought of the letter and shot a wide, brilliant smile as an ambassador's wife complimented her performance. She let the woman introduce her to an SS officer – _married to the second cousin of SS __Obergruppenführer__ Heydrich, acting Protector of Czechoslovakia_ – Alice recalled from her research before the party, and warmly clasped the man's hand. One of her missions for tonight was to learn everything she could about Heydrich's movements for the SSR, though she suspected it was a different agency wanting the information. The SSR didn't have a lot of inroads in Czechoslovakia.

She chatted and made small talk, bringing up travel, which then prompted the officer to brag about his recent trip to Prague and his _close relative Heydrich_'s house. Alice barely had to ask any questions, he was so eager to assert his importance. She absorbed everything he said, every minute detail about the length of the commute from Heydrich's house to Prague and their favourite restaurants and cafes in the city, with an _almost_-bored look in her eye.

"I'd love to visit Prague one day," she said when the man finally stopped for breath. "Are the roads safe?"

The man caught his breath and started telling her all about the precautions they had to take on the roads. As he spoke, Alice listened, and let her gaze drift across the room.

Klein was nowhere to be seen. She ground her jaw.

While Klein had worked wonders for launching Alice into the public eye, in their _other _work he had been… not exactly controlling, but excluding. He would go out to meet contacts by himself, and then just _tell _her what the plan was after it was all decided. He knew he needed her network, of course, and he at least let her handle that side of things, but he didn't put an ounce of faith in her.

Every step she made she had to run past him, every idea she had seemed to go ignored. Just last week she'd suggested that she meet (as Al) with a potential courier who had a regular route to Paris because of his delivery job, but Klein had flat out ignored her and handed her the latest performance setlist.

Alice felt frustrated. Because their work was _good_, and useful to the people who mattered, but she felt… held back. She'd been ignoring the feeling for weeks, because she knew that now was not the time for ego. She needed to trust the more experienced spy: he was her handler and her manager, after all.

But they'd arrived to this post-performance party together, and now he wasn't even _here. _Alice smoothed down her dress, the picture of poise, but her thoughts roiled. Klein hadn't told her about any special plans tonight beyond instructing her to ingratiate herself with the head of the Gestapo in Bavaria.

Alice _understood _the need for secrecy, but she didn't know if his being missing should ring alarm bells. Could he be in trouble?

The SS officer's wife came over and asked her husband to introduce her to the _lovely young songstress. _The conversation soon turned to music, and Alice didn't risk pressing further about Heydrich. She'd learned more than she'd expected to already.

After a few more moments Alice touched the officer's elbow (mindful of his wife's watchful eyes) and then whirled off to her next conversation. She'd been getting a reputation for being an attentive guest and host. People liked when she remembered their names. Alice was good with names.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a door across the room open, and looked over to see Klein and a young woman spill through, laughing arm in arm. Alice knew better than to stop and stare, but every ounce of her attention was on the pair, even as she signaled a waiter for another glass of champagne.

The woman was perhaps ten years younger than Klein, older than Alice, wearing a plain uniform dress and a smile on her dark lips. Klein's hair stuck up a little on one side, and the collar of the woman's dress was rumpled. They accidentally nudged a few guests by the door as they spilled through, then laughed as they apologized.

Alice greeted an old acquaintance from Vienna, careful to wipe the narrow-eyed look from her face. Because it was plain to anyone who saw what had happened between Klein and that woman. And Alice didn't believe a single bit of it.

She talked about the warming weather as she watched the woman part from Klein and slide across the room to an elderly gentleman, who Alice realized a moment later must be her employer. The woman dipped her head in a deferential nod, and the gentleman sighed knowingly before turning back to his conversation with a man in a SS uniform.

Back by the door, Klein flicked an impassive glance toward Alice, then flattened down his hair as he moved across the room to talk to a music producer she recognized.

Alice wanted to _shake _him. But she just turned her gaze back to her old acquaintance, and when he made a very poor joke she tipped her head back in a laugh.

The night wore on, measured in glasses of champagne Alice pretended to drink and her feet getting increasingly sore in her beautiful shoes. She made a promise to herself that if she ever survived this war, she'd never wear a pair of high heels ever again.

Before the performance Klein had tasked her with setting up a meeting with the head of the Gestapo in Bavaria, as he and his wife were in attendance. Alice had spoken with them a few times, building up familiarity, and she intended to circle back to them. But outside the ladies' room she'd overhead an interesting snippet of conversation about one of the ladies' beaus. So she'd befriended the lady by complimenting her shoes, and now they walked arm in arm to meet her friends.

The young woman took her to a circle of men and women up the back corner of the venue. From the look of them (and from what she'd guessed) they were secretaries and administrators, high up enough in the chain of command that the men were probably officers as well and they'd all merited an invite to the party, but low enough that they didn't feel comfortable mingling with the top brass.

The small group seemed a little starstruck by her at first, but Alice faux-whispered that she'd once been an office secretary (a lie, but not one that would be easy to disprove) and they instantly warmed to her. The conversation turned to the tedium of office work and how bosses didn't always know best. Alice chatted, and laughed, and was beginning to bring up a party she wanted to throw next week at the social hall near her hotel in _Tauentzienstraße__ when –_

_"__Frä__u__lein_ Moser," came a low, measured voice from over her shoulder.

Alice turned with a pleasant smile that _almost _faltered when she saw Klein standing there with a smile on his face but a look in his eyes that she didn't like.

"Otto," she smiled, then gripped his elbow – maybe digging in a little bit, he could take it – and turned to face the group she'd been chatting with. "Everyone, this is my manager Otto Klein. Otto, this is Sara, and Georg, and…" she introduced him to all of them, and they bowed and shook his hand and were generally pleasant.

"A pleasure," he said when she was done, with a narrow smile to them all. He put his hand on Alice's back. "I'm afraid I have to steal the Siren now, many apologies." He _sounded_ sorry, but his hand on Alice's back was firm.

Alice grit her teeth as she smiled. The group nodded and waved her off, and Alice allowed herself to be steered away. It was a startlingly familiar moment. _Don't compare him to your uncle, _she warned herself, though it didn't help her feel any less irritated. _It's not the same._

"You must introduce me to your new friend, the _SS Obergruppenführer _and his wife," he said in a chatty tone.

"I must," Alice replied charmingly. She wanted to punch him.

But she led him across the room to the SS leader, and introduced Otto with effusive praise about how much he'd helped her and been her friend in her uncle's absence, and within minutes the SS leader's wife had invited them both over for tea on the weekend.

Alice and Klein spent the rest of the evening at the table with the SS leader and his wife, moving the conversation from Alice's performance, to her homesickness for Austria, to the man's work in Bavaria and his troubles with insurgents there. His wife ended up being chattier, and on a trip to the bathroom she confided in Alice that _that awful Schmidt fellow _had finally left his castle in Bavaria and she'd heard that he was _off in exile somewhere, hopefully bothering nobody with his awful company. _The SSR already knew this, but Alice gently pressed for details just in case. She did get something useful: Schmidt was definitely still at the base Hitler had gifted him for his exile. _I'm sure, my husband got a telegram last week about it._

They returned to the men, and soon the SS leader and his wife had called for their car and made Alice reaffirm her promise that she'd come visit them on the weekend.

"Let's go," Klein muttered when they were gone.

It was a long, silent ride back to the hotel.

* * *

Back at the hotel, Alice didn't go straight to her room like she normally did. She stepped out of the elevator beside Klein, nodding to the elevator operator, and silently followed him to his room. He didn't speak. He opened the door, held it open for her, and followed her in. Alice spared a glance for the room – an ornate suite with multiple rooms, like hers – before turning to face him.

Klein seemed to sense her hidden, roiling frustration, because the instant the door closed behind him he faced her and crossed his arms. He looked imposing with that scowl on his face, illuminated by the yellow electric lamps. "What."

Alice took a breath to measure her tone. "What you did tonight was not acceptable."

He raised an eyebrow. "What? Completing the mission?"

Her jaw clenched. "If you would just give me an _inch _of leeway-"

He practically rolled his eyes at her. "There's no room for leeway, and I don't have time for your tantrums, _Frä__u__lein, _not with all the work that must be done." He must have seen her eyes go hard and cold at that, because he gestured to her. "Oh go on then, get it all out."

"I am not your _cover, _Klein, and neither am I your pawn for you to… to move around the board without a say. If this is going to work we need to work _together. _You can't treat me like some unruly child-"

Klein let out a frustrated sigh and stalked past her, further into the room. "What, you need me to like you? Think that will help us undermine the Nazis?"

She whirled. "I don't care if you like me, I care if you have my back!"

"This isn't a game of loyalty, Ms Moser." He undid his cufflinks and laid them on the counter, as if this conversation wasn't worth his focus. "We are _spies. _Our every breathing moment is dangerous, and your desperate need to be reassured and included will only get us killed."

"Do you really think so little of me? I've made my choices, Klein, I've thrown my hat in this ring, same as you."

He poured himself a glass of whiskey. "Have you? Do you really think you could do everything it takes to bring about the end of this war?"

"I do."

He rolled his eyes and went to sit on the ornate couch.

Alice still hadn't moved from where she stood, too focused on forming the words to make him _see_, and containing her anger at him. But as he leaned over and began taking off his shoes, Alice realized exactly what he thought of her. To him, she was a convenience: a distraction and a ticket to where he needed to be to get _his _work done. Her fingernails dug into her palms.

"Don't you dismiss me, Klein," she said in a lower voice. "I might not be as hardened as you, but don't for one minute think that makes me some naïve songstress. You have no idea what I've-"

He finally looked up and met her eyes. "Go on then," he challenged. "What have you been through? What do you bring to the table, really? Because as far as I've seen, you're just an idealistic liar with a pretty voice." He sat back and crossed his arms.

Alice glared at him, narrow eyed, then took a deep breath. He'd managed to make her visibly angry. That didn't happen often.

"Very well." She drew herself to her full height. "Allow me to guess, for a moment, what _your_ mission tonight was. You were at that mixer to shop me around as the latest big name in music, and you also wanted me to befriend the SS leader and his wife so we could get more information about HYDRA – because it would have been inappropriate for a music agent to approach them directly. But the Siren? No one would question that."

She spread a hand. "In the meantime, you also had a covert meeting with the personal assistant of the ambassador to Vichy France." His eyes narrowed. "Yes, I noticed. I can't imagine what you two could have spoken about, since you didn't warn me that you might go _missing _from the room, but if I had to guess I'd say the SSR is preparing for a covert incursion into France, and they want all the information they can get about the Vichy government." Klein's eyes narrowed further and Alice flicked a hand. "None of my business, though. You return from your meeting and see that your _asset _is apparently shirking in her _one _job for the night, so you come over and helpfully steer me back on task."

He raised his eyebrows meaningfully at her.

Alice took a deep breath so she wouldn't start yelling. "So that was your mission. If you'd stopped to talk to me, or just _trusted _me, as I apparently must trust you with your secret meetings, I could have told you that though I began tonight with one job, I ended up with more than I intended."

She cleared her throat. "_Yes, _I befriended the lieutenant general and his wife. I'd been doing so throughout the night, of course I hadn't forgotten. Excellent, I did the bare minimum, that's the best you can hope for, right?" She didn't bother to wait for him to reply. "I also spoke to his wife in the bathroom and got confirmation that Johann Schmidt is definitely still in his base, as of last week." She lifted a finger. Klein had opened his mouth – that was the most up to date information the SSR had yet about Schmidt's movements – but Alice just kept going.

"I _also _spoke with a relative of _SS __Obergruppenführer _Heydrich, and I have a host of details about his daily life in Prague to give the SSR so they can pass it on." She lifted a second finger then cocked her head. "Now, what else? I can also tell you that Herr Fanslau from the Waffen SS is having an affair with a brigadier general's daughter. I've been invited to tea next week, that should help me figure out exactly whose daughter." A third finger. "The Chief of Staff who was at the party today has been paying for prostitutes in downtown Berlin. Probably worth speaking to them to see how loose his lips get." A fourth finger.

Alice went down her mental tally of people and facts from the night. She'd identified two SS officers who could potentially be pressed to provide more information, one political administrator who was prime material for manipulation, and three others who'd take a bribe. She usually kept these ruthless, calculating lists in her own mind, but as she stood on the carpet in Klein's hotel room she let it all spill out. She explained what she had learned and how, and how she had laid paving stones for further manipulation.

It might have felt like bragging, if the stakes weren't life and death. Alice never did this. She usually quietly passed on her information to couriers, or hung on to the more sensitive information until she spoke with a contact face to face, and never divulged it all at once like this. But Klein _needed _to hear this.

His expression remained inscrutable and annoyed, but she saw his eyes widening incrementally as she spoke. He wanted so badly to be unimpressed by her. She didn't want to impress him. She just wanted him to listen.

"And lastly," she finished, once she'd raised nine fingers, "that group of nobodies in the corner you dragged me away from? One of those men, Georg, is the direct secretary to the _head _of SS intelligence. In other words, the man who might have known more about HYDRA than anyone else in that room. And you completely blew my chances of learning more from him."

Klein's brows drew together and he held up a hand. "Okay I get it-"

"And what's more," she continued, incensed into a verbal rampage now, "I've been saddled with a handler who grew up as a poor, disillusioned boy from Hamburg who made something of himself and gained power and wealth to prove to himself that he meant something, until one day he realized he had a soul, and set out to help people." Klein shut his mouth and the annoyed look on his face dropped.

She barely paused for breath. She met his eyes directly. "A handler who believes in the theory that women are intelligent, capable beings, but is terrified to try it out in the real world. He's hardened himself to the world because he lost the things he loved and he's terrified of becoming attached to anything ever again."

She stepped closer. "A handler who's told himself he'll never trust again, because trust _hurts_. A handler who works as an agent for the most famous singers and actresses in Germany, and yet doesn't have the reputation for philandering that every single other agent does. A handler who doesn't look at the chorusgirls. Not even once."

She loomed over him where he sat on the couch and her shadow fell across his wide-eyed face. Alice reached out and jabbed a finger against his chest, finding the shape of a metal ring beneath his shirt.

"A handler who wears a wedding band out of sight," she said lowly, "because he'd be sent straight to a concentration camp if anyone knew who he truly loved."

She'd cut him to the bone. Alice saw Klein's expression raw and wounded for a moment, like a hardened, barnacled shellfish cracked open. For a few moments they just stared at each other – he practically sunken into the couch and she looming over him, with her finger to his chest.

Then the fight drained out of her all at once and Alice fell, exhausted, onto the couch beside him.

They were silent for a few long moments, breathing hard. Alice stared up at the ceiling's ornate plaster molding. The somber electric lights played across the molding, a light and dark landscape.

Klein broke the silence with a whisper. "How… _how _did you know?"

Alice shrugged. "I grew up in New York. Things like that aren't quite as shocking there, in some parts. And… I'm very observant."

"I can see that." His head rolled to the side to look at her. "I underestimated you."

Her eyebrows rose and she faced him. He looked years older, and his eyes were sad. "And I you. I didn't expect you to admit you were wrong."

"Consider us both surprised, then." He paused, and Alice studied his face. She _had _cracked something open inside him. For the first time she felt as if she were seeing the _real _Otto Klein: not a scowling, brusque agent but a man. He swallowed. "How did you know I was from Hamburg?"

"I've got a good ear for accents, though you try to hide yours." Her eyes flicked over his face. "And I know you don't need those glasses, either." She'd stolen them off his desk last week and tried them on. There was no prescription, just glass.

His mouth ticked up and he slid the glasses off his face to look at them. "This is how I avoided conscription to the army. Nearsightedness."

Alice's lips curved. She'd helped plenty of Austrians avoid conscription to the German Army. She hadn't thought of that. She watched the smile slowly drop from Klein's face, and then his gaze went distant.

Alice nodded to the ring hidden under his shirt. "Who is he?"

Klein's face darkened. "Was. He was a singer, like you. Romani gypsy." Alice's heart panged at the memory of Jilí. "We were going to leave together, back before _Kristallnacht_, but he went to go get his papers forged and…" he spread a hand helplessly. A moment passed. "He might still be alive." There was no hope in his voice. He said it like that was the worst option.

Klein's hand fell loose on the couch between them. Alice took it and squeezed. She didn't know what to say. She tried to imagine losing Steve like that, but her heart cracked at just the idea.

Eventually, she took a deep breath. "I'm not here to make friends. But, and you can call me naïve if you like, every human needs some light to stay alive. We need friends, we need hope, we need loyalty. Something to keep us going." She looked into his eyes. "Tomorrow, one of us may have to betray the other. Tomorrow both of us may be dead. But can we die as friends?"

He eyed her for a few long moments. Eventually he reached up to run a hand through his hair with a sigh. "_Ach_, why not. We're all going to die anyway."

"That's the spirit." She swallowed and then leveled him with a serious look. "I might not have been working for the SSR as long as you, Otto, but I have been undercover since I arrived in Austria six years ago. I know how to get information. I know how to make people do what I want them to. I know how to help the people who need help, without anyone knowing I was involved. _Let me do my job_."

He bowed his head and looked down at their clasped hands. His chest rose and fell.

"Alright then," he murmured. "Let's talk about this intelligence secretary."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up my dears, here's yet another OC ;) Don't worry, we're close to the TFA timeline now, I promise!
> 
> Shout out to Wikipedia for all the article facts in this chapter.


	32. Chapter Twenty Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lost a whole chapter and a half of this story thanks to the evil computer gods, thank you to the lovely Sadie Kane for keeping me sane while I wanted to pitch myself directly into the infernos of Hades. That is all, I'm working on rewriting, the update schedule won't be affected :)
> 
> Also, this is long. Oops.

April 1942

Alice would come to feel a little guilty about tearing Otto to shreds as she had that night, but only a little bit: it turned out that had been exactly what they needed to come together as a team.

Overnight, it all fell into place. They had a system: performances, social gatherings, private visits, drops and meetings in the shadows. They trusted each other's judgement and relied on their mutual resources. They still kept necessary secrets from each other, but Alice didn't feel that they were _hiding _anything from each other. She even told Otto that she was still sending letters back home to 'friends', which he didn't approve of but he didn't stop her.

Alice rented an apartment in Berlin, and split her time between there and Vienna. Spirits in Berlin were still high; despite setbacks on the Eastern Front, more and more countries were falling to the Reich and it seemed Hitler's dreams of a united Europe weren't far away. Alice found herself, bizarrely, coming to feel fondness for places and people in Berlin (her next door neighbor was a sweet grandmother) while utterly despising it at the same time.

She'd become part of an international network of couriers – people were always flitting around a star, it wasn't unusual for her to meet many people. Otto realized quickly that she was good with people and patterns, and together they wove a resistance network. They set up drop sites, information exchanges, and even a bit of sabotage on the side. Alice got personal invites to government buildings and did everything she could while there: she spoke to everyone who seemed even slightly inclined to discuss their work, snooped in every unattended desk, and even broke phone wires and machinery from time to time, just because.

They set up a monthly performance in Switzerland, which gave them a regular way to contact a handler in the SSR. After each performance Alice and Otto simply waited in her dressing room and the handler (usually the same young agent, but occasionally someon else) would appear. They fed back every little thing they learned about HYDRA: Schmidt's latest reported location, the resources and machine parts they'd purchase, the evidence of their bases across the Reich. Alice also reported on the mood in Berlin and gave reports on the characters of each Nazi leader she'd met, commenting on various weaknesses she'd observed.

At the end of May, the German papers exploded with the news that the SS Leader Heydrich had been attacked in Prague: assassins from the Czech resistance (likely with the aid of foreign allies) had stopped his car on his commute to work, and thrown an anti-tank grenade into the vehicle. Heydrich wasn't dead but badly injured by shrapnel.

When Alice read the headline as she took tea in her Berlin apartment, her stomach swooped. A moment later, grim satisfaction settled in her gut. This was important for the Czech resistance. Though, she realized a second later, this was the first major blow against the Nazi leadership. She didn't know what they would do in response.

* * *

SSR Mission Report by Agent Carter: Project Homer (May 29th, 1942). Archived by Catherine Laurey, SHIELD Archivist

_CLASSIFIED_

_As expected, Agent Homer and Agent Badger have solidified their network in multiple countries. Both agents report that they are each satisfied with the other's performance, and encouraged further collaboration. Indeed, the intelligence the pair are collecting is startling. The Reserve is quickly becoming reliant on their information to track HYDRA's movements._

_No signs of compromisation._

_Recommendation: Give the agents permission to expend further resources, and request that they expand their reach._

* * *

Alice should have known that with her rising fame, people would take a closer look at her. It happened just days after news of the attack in Prague.

She and Otto were at a launch meeting for her latest record with the Propaganda Department, sitting in a room hazy with cigarette smoke alongside half a dozen producers and officers in suits, and the senior secretary, a tall woman with clear blue eyes and blonde hair a shade darker than Alice's. Alice sensed that the woman didn't like her all that much. Goebbels himself wasn't there, as there was a Nazi leadership meeting on the same morning. A radio in the corner pealed out a piano piece.

They were just discussing planned tour dates and press appearances when one of Goebbels's officers – the lead producer – lowered his voice to say:

"_Frä__u__lein _Moser, I must bring something up with you. Though we were aware of your time as a child in America" – that was a well known fact and not particularly shocking, since many artists had lived abroad – "we were most shocked to learn that after your beloved father's death your late mother, rest her soul, married a…" his voice lowered further and he used a _disgusting _word that made Alice's heartrate skyrocket with rage. And fear.

The room fell silent. The radio continued to play its cheery piano piece.

Alice sensed Otto go still beside her. She could feel him thinking, scrambling for something to say, but everyone in the room was looking at _her. _These suited men with their cigarettes and slicked hair and mustaches were watching her with judgement writ across their expressions. And she realized: _they already knew. _That's what this meeting was about, at its essence. They had done their research into their latest propaganda asset, found something horrifically unsavory, and called a meeting to confront her with it. At the far desk, the secretary narrowed her eyes and her lip curled.

Alice's heart pounded. Otto's fingers clenched on his knee.

The officer began speaking again, saying how they'd found marriage records, _really very shocking_, and a birth certificate-

"I'd hoped that no one would ever find out about that," Alice said in a soft voice. They all fell silent again. She cast her eyes down and her fingers twisted into her dress. "I… I try not to think about when I lived in America. It's such a different place, so many lines have been blurred, I…" she pressed her shaking lips together for a moment. She didn't look up, but she knew they were all hanging onto her every word. "I knew that what was happening wasn't… natural." She reached up and brushed a tear away with the back of her hand. "I didn't understand at the time, I was so young, but when I was older I just felt… _horrified_ at the choices my mother made."

She heard nothing but the song on the radio, and the sound of men breathing. Her cheeks burned.

"When my uncle came and took me back to Austria I just wanted to forget it all." A tear spilled down her cheek. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't think…" she ducked her head. "I didn't think anyone would find out."

She hunched, like a child in trouble, and nearly jumped when she felt Otto's hand land on hers. He gripped her fingers and _squeezed_. More tears spilled down her cheeks and rolled off the tip of her nose to splash on her lap.

After a few silent moments, she looked up from under her lashes.

The men who weren't shooting significant glances at each other were watching her with naked, undisguised _pity._ Her stomach flipped and she had to press a hand to her abdomen to steady herself. Her skin prickled and burned, but the hollow of her chest felt as empty and cold as an Arctic waste.

The main producer rubbed a hand across his jaw, eyeing her. "I see," he murmured. He glanced at a few of the other men in the room, then looked back at her. "I understand now. Such a childhood…" He shook his head pityingly. "You can't be blamed for your parent's choices. And that _child_…" he pressed his lips together.

"Disgusting," chimed in the man to his left, before throwing back a sip of his whiskey.

Alice's ears were ringing. "Disgusting," she echoed in a small voice.

"Oh, _Frä__u__lein,_" said the producer. He stood, and came to sit on the couch beside Alice, on the other side from Otto, and patted her hand. "I am sorry for bringing all this up. Well, now we can be honest with each other." He looked up and met the eyes of every other man in the room. "We see no need for this information to get out. You needn't worry about this again, _Frä__u__lein _Moser, we understand your desire to put it in the past."

The men around the room nodded seriously, and within moments conversation struck up again: tour dates, an article about the Siren to promote her all-Germanic wholesomeness, press pictures. The secretary was sent for more coffee. Alice appeared visibly shaken for a few moments more, until one of the producers told her a joke. She smiled, a look of relief in her eyes, and joined in the conversation.

When it was all over, Otto had the driver take them straight back to Alice's apartment. They didn't speak in the car. When they arrived he walked her up the stairs, hand at her back, and took the key from her trembling hand to let them both inside. He didn't try to stop her when she dashed for the bathroom.

Otto poured a glass of water in the kitchen and brought it to her in the bathroom. He found Alice clinging to the edges of the toilet bowl as she heaved up her breakfast, gagging and near blind from the tears streaming down her face. Her arms shook and the bathroom echoed with the terrible gasping sobs ripping from her throat. Otto could tell that she'd be screaming, if she wasn't worried about the neighbors hearing.

He swept her fine blonde hair off her face and gathered it out of the way at the back of her neck. He rubbed her back, and when her gasping breaths edged too close to dangerous he forced her to slow her breathing before she passed out. When she could breathe, he made her drink the water.

She slumped to the side of the toilet, knees drawn to her chest, and gripped her hair in her hands.

"I can put my own life and my own image on the line," she croaked, still shuddering. "But I didn't want to bring my family into this. I… my brother - they don't deserve-"

"I know," he murmured, and passed her the water glass again.

She didn't take it. Her hands dragged downward and he realized a moment too late that she was clawing at her lips, groaning between gritted teeth, as if trying to take back what she'd said. Otto pulled her wrists away gently, surprised at her strength, until she stopped fighting him. She'd cut herself; the blood spilled down her chin.

He rubbed his thumbs across the back of her hands. Her head tilted back, thudding against the tile wall, and her eyes squeezed shut with an agony he'd never seen before.

"You are not the things that you say," Otto murmured. He cautiously released her wrists. "You are the things that you _do_, Alice, and you are doing so much good. I know it hurts, I can't imagine..." he blew out a breath. He'd thought it was all lost, that moment in the meeting room. He'd seen the fear and rage flash in her eyes, followed by the utter hopelessness. And then she'd… she'd done _that. _She was stronger than he'd ever given her credit for.

He reached for the water glass and held it out. "I know it hurts, but you are _helping_, Alice. Don't lose sight of that."

For a few long moments she didn't move. She sat slumped against the wall, her hair straggled across her face, blood dripping from her chin, and her face wrenched with misery.

But then she drew in a breath, and after a moment her fingers closed over his on the glass.

* * *

_May 30th, 1942  
Dear Steve,_

_I've done something terrible. It's for a good reason, but I have to wonder at what point 'doing the wrong thing for the right reason' becomes a hollow excuse. I know this will make you worry, and I'm sorry for that, and I'm sorry I can't tell you what happened._

_But I needed to tell you. Talking to you makes me feel real when nothing else does. I miss you. I'm so sorry I left, and I hope one day you'll understand._

_Tell me something normal._

_Love,  
Alice._

* * *

_May 30th, 1942  
Dear Tom,_

_I love you. I know that's embarrassing to hear, but I don't say it enough. I love you. Dad loved you. Mom loved you. They loved each other, so much. And that's worth protecting._

_You remember how you said they'd be proud of me? I really needed that. It's hard to imagine what people would have thought once they're gone. But if I can trust anyone on that, it's you._

_I want to make you proud, Tom._

_As for you, I'm proud of you every day and you don't need to do anything to earn it._

_How did your exams go?_

_Love,  
Alice._

* * *

Alice didn't get their replies for over a month, which gave her heart some time to heal, but the letters – which arrived in the same envelope – brought her to loud, sobbing tears as she read them in bed. The pages ended up so damp that it took her a few tries to burn them.

* * *

General Heydrich died of his injuries on the 4th of June, and the Nazis rained down hellfire on the people of Czechoslovakia. They razed the village of Lidice to the ground, murdering or arresting the over 500 citizens and taking away their children. Another village was torn to shreds because they found a resistance radio there.

Over ten thousand people ended up arrested. The German papers salivated over it all, worked up into a frenzy over the assassination and celebrating the fierce reprisals.

Alice read it all in horror. She might not have ordered the assassination, but she _knew _she'd been involved in some way. And these were the consequences. _All those people dead._ She'd always known that the Nazis were brutal in their retaliation, but this was potent proof. _How does one fight against that?_

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Seventy Years On: Remembering Lidice'_ by Henry Horák (10 June 2012) [Translated from Czech]

_... While it's only been a month since the dust settled after the tragedy in New York, it is worthwhile looking back to remember other acts of defiant resistance, and the consequences._

_On this day seventy years ago, 173 men over the age of 15 were executed in the village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, after the assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich. The nearly 200 women (four of them pregnant) and 88 children were sent to concentration camps. Only a handful survived. Those children deemed "racially acceptable" were taken from their parents and given to German families to raise under Nazi ideals._

_The village itself was destroyed with fire and bombs. The animals were slaughtered. Graves defiled. When all living things were gone, the Germans brought down all the buildings, laid down topsoil and planted crops._

_The people of Lidice had never harbored Heydrich's assassins. Had never had anything to do with the attack at all._

_Nazi propaganda, bloodthirsty for revenge, praised and publicized the utter destruction of the village and its people. The assassins themselves were betrayed by a fellow Resistance member, had nearly their whole families killed, and died in a firefight against the Germans when they were found in a Prague cathedral._

_The Allies had not foreseen this level of violent retribution for the assassination, and approached all later missions with much more caution._

* * *

After that, the summer passed in a blur of travel and music. Alice, Otto and their retinue expanded beyond Germany and Austria into occupied France. At first she performed at the same music halls, but then orders came through from Goebbel's department and she traveled out to the provinces, performing for the troops. It was strange to look out over her audience and see only dull green uniforms. They were enthusiastic crowds. She sang _Berlin is still Berlin, _and _Erika_, and other patriotic songs that she herself had written. The words tasted like ash on her tongue, but she made them sound like gold.

She wrote and performed a new song while touring the different army companies. It was called _The Eagle's Flight_, and it was more of a comedy song than anything else, but she'd slipped in a subtle hint of resistance. In the third line she compared the might of Germany to that of the Greek hero Odysseus. But she referred to him by his _other _name: Ulysses. The code word she and Steve had been using since they were children.

She hadn't done it for any particular purpose, more to feel like she was doing _something. _Not just giving in blindly. But on her second night performing it she looked out over her audience of cheering, wolf-whistling Wehrmacht soldiers and realized that Steve would want no part of this. She'd just put a sacred piece of her childhood in a _Nazi song. _She felt sick at herself, but the song was written now.

She performed it forty seven times on the tour.

Alice reconnected with Vera and her resistance network. She set up a spider's web of couriers, through which she and Otto coordinated airdrops of arms and supplies for the various Maquis groups in the countryside. She had regular dinners with German military commanders, which became a rich source of information. She had to be careful how much information she passed on, because if she gave away everything she knew then it would become clear where it had all had come from.

Alice had hoped to meet with Josephine Baker, an African-American performer in France who she had met on her last tour (and subsequently had discovered that Josephine worked as a resistance activist, housing members of the Free French). But things had gotten too dangerous for Baker, and she was now performing for Allied troops in North Africa.

The face of the resistance in France had changed. It was far more organized and militarized. The British SOE had agents everywhere. In response, the Gestapo were getting cleverer.

Alice met with agents under the cover of darkness and in the bold light of day. She slipped money to a man who she knew was running an escape line to get fallen Allied airmen out of occupied France and into neutral Spain. She spoke with dozens of informants, from brothel owners to corporation chief executive officers. In Lyon she agreed to an interview with a dark haired, hawk-eyed journalist named Virginia Hall. For the first half of their meeting they discussed Alice's recent career successes and the prospects of her love life. For the second half of the meeting Alice told Hall what her informants had told her, so Hall could covertly pass the information on to London for her, and in return agreed to provide vehicles and resources for a planned upcoming jailbreak of resistance members.

The Gestapo tapped phone lines and stole mail, keenly hunting down suspected spies. For whatever reason, they never seemed to suspect the women.

Even in France, rumors of the ghettos and camps in the East filtered back. People tended to dismiss most rumors as exaggeration, but Alice felt nothing but an acute sense of horror. _So many people are missing_, she thought. _Where have they all gone?_

Alice didn't write to Steve about the war. It was all too sensitive, too secret, and she sensed a similar desire in him to have some kind of connection untainted by war. Steve sent her his art, and she wrote him some lyrics from her latest songs (the least-Nazi ones) in English. Writing English music was a strange kind of relief. Steve told her about Brooklyn, and she told him about the croissant she'd had for breakfast and the way the sun had looked setting over the Seine. They read the same books and exchanged their thoughts.

Each time a letter arrived, Alice surprised herself with her desperate excitement.

* * *

Excerpts from '_Free French_' by Louise Caron (1970)

_... surprising to many at the time, a number of foreign-born women put their lives on the line to support the resistance in France. Among them were Josephine Baker, an African American performer who married a French Jewish indsutrialist. Baker became an 'honorable correspondent' for the French military intelligence, and later housed Free French fugitives._

_Another notable foreign-born female resistant was the legendary New Zealand-born Nancy Wake, who lived with her husband in Paris at the beginning of the occupation. She helped to get Allied servicemen and Jewish refugees out of the country and to safety (the Pat O'Leary line), but eventually had to flee herself after the Germans began hunting her (they called her the 'White Mouse'). She trained with the SOE in Britain before parachuting back into France in 1943 to work directly with the Resistance. She only found out at the end of the war that her husband had been killed by the Gestapo._

_Virginia Hall was an SOE Agent who arrived in occupied France in 1941 under the guise of an American journalist. She first worked to organize resistance movements and supplied assistance and resources, but after being forced to flee returned in 1944 as a wireless operator._

_Nancy Wake, Virginia Hall and other agents sent into occupied France were trained in Britain by the Romanian-born Vera Atkins, who also worked to break the German Enigma codes. She was responsible for 37 female agents who worked as couriers and wireless operators, and was trusted by the SOE leadership for her integrity, organization and exceptional memory. She lived by the motto 'dubito ergo sum': 'I doubt therefore I survive'._

_..._

_Civilian resistance cropped up everywhere... __there are also reports of a young man only known as 'Al' who seems to have been involved in some quite central resistance movements: the Pat O'Leary line, funneling resources and information past the Nazi occupiers, and in setting up networks of radio operators ("pianists") and informants. No further information exists about this man, and it's suspected that he was arrested under the Night and Fog Decree towards the end of the war. Alternatively, some historians suggest a host of different resistance figures as the elusive "Al" including the __Belgian resistant Albert Guérisse and even_ _novelist Albert Camus._

* * *

Alice, Otto and their retinue arrived back in Berlin on the first day of August. The sun-drenched streets were sweltering, and the dark recesses of the city gave off the sickly sweet smell of rotting garbage. People seemed optimistic about the Eastern Front again, as the German Army was charging straight for Stalingrad, and despite the Americans joining the war the Nazis still controlled nearly the whole of Europe.

Alice was frustrated at the course of the war, but privately pleased when it came to her and Otto's progress; it seemed all their careful work in wheedling close to HYDRA's contacts in other Nazi departments had paid off. The key HYDRA leadership, after months of exile, had been invited back to Berlin for just three days to account for themselves in front of Hitler and his generals himself.

At first it was just meant to be a series of meetings, and Alice began trying to work out how to get herself at least in the same building, but then they found out that Hitler's personal secretary Martin Bormann was going to throw a dinner at the Kroll Opera House in honor of the visiting science division. Hitler wasn't expected, as he would be getting a train back to the Eastern Front mere hours after the meeting with Schmidt.

_If that's not a sign that they're infighting_, Otto commented as he and Alice discussed the rumor, _I don't know what is._

Otto said he'd see about securing invitations the next day, but he didn't have to wait that long. When the morning post arrived the next morning it included a letter addressed to _Die Sirene, _from the office of Adolf Hitler.

* * *

Excerpt from Nazi Party Chancellery Report, August 1942: HYDRA Progress [Translated]

_Outcomes of attempting to naturalize their leadership are uncertain. They did not admit to any paramilitary activities beyond F_ _ührer authorization._

_Schmidt says and does everything he is expected to, but we have no way to determine how genuine he is being._

* * *

Alice had performed at the Kroll Opera House before, but never like this. The flat ballroom space had converted into a dining room; cleared of seats and neatly arranged with elegant tables, and the red velvet box seats on the upper levels looked down on the chandelier-lit dining hall, completely empty.

An enormous swastika hung behind the stage. Alice knew that they sometimes held the Reichstag parliament meetings here when the ministers weren't off at various military postings (since the actual Reichstag building had _mysteriously _burned down in 1933).

Alice had backup singers now: six Propaganda Department chorus girls who wore toned-down versions of Alice's usual snow-white performance dress. They'd stood behind her and harmonized nicely during the cheery propaganda songs, but now Alice stood alone on stage. The orchestra were hidden below in the pit.

The letter from Hitler's office had requested a specific setlist which stated: _during the main course, you will kindly perform the Queen of the Night's aria from __Die Zauberflöte__._ Alice had never actually performed the opera since her uncle had grown increasingly annoyed with the time demands of opera as she grew older, and Alice had not wanted to be tied down to a performance after his death, but she knew the high, furious aria like the back of her hand: it had been the centerpiece of her graduation recital. _Der __Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen – _in English, 'Hell's vengeance boils in my heart'.

The performance gave her ample opportunity to keep an eye on her crowd, especially since she could see them just as well as they saw her, thanks to the ambient dinner lighting. As far as she could tell, the guest list was slim: some generals and ministers she recognized, but mostly just their representatives. It seemed no one had wanted to waste a night on Schmidt and HYDRA.

She supposed they were considered a failed division, after all. They'd failed Hitler's expectations.

Alice filled her lungs for the high, stacattoed upper range of the aria and closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate. This was a villain's aria, she needed to call on her rage.

She briefly wondered if the Nazi intelligence would pay more attention to HYDRA if they knew everything that the SSR did_. _Because Alice felt certain they were up to more than sulking in that distant base of theirs.

Her breath pealed out of her in a piercing cry – she liked that note, it made her lungs burn – and then as the aria eased into the instrumental segment she opened her eyes to gaze down at her audience once more. Her attention flicked to the HYDRA table.

Schmidt sat straight-backed and grim-faced in his chair. He wore the usual black dress uniform with the silver buttons and red swastika on his sleeve, but she picked out strange details: his vest seemed padded somehow, as if he wore some kind of armor beneath it, and he had a silver pin in his breast pocket. She was too far away to make it out. She opened her mouth to launch back into the second half of the aria.

Schmidt's eyes were on her but his attention felt different to the others in the audience; he didn't appear to be _hearing _her sing, so much as he was _weathering _it. Like a storm that must be tided over. He didn't look pleased, but she suspected it was more to do with the company and circumstances he found himself in, rather than the performance before him. He didn't take a bite of the food before him. He had such a black, fixed stare. It made her want to shiver.

Doctor Zola slumped in the seat to Schmidt's left. The lights bounced off his glasses, making it seem like he had two giant white circles for eyes. Zola wasn't looking at her at all, seemingly too occupied by the steak dinner. As the aria moved to the Queen of the Night's final vengeful cry: "_H__ö__rt, h__ö__rt, h__ö__rt" _[_hear, hear, hear_], she crested a particularly high note and Zola glanced up for a moment.

Schmidt's lieutenants made up the rest of the table, wearing a strange dark uniform that Alice had never seen before. These were grim-faced men also, and she noticed that they always looked to Schmidt for their cues. They hadn't moved a muscle when the dinner host had invited everyone to eat, only picking up their cutlery when Schmidt nodded. She'd heard that HYDRA had arrived in Berlin with a whole contingent of soldiers, but they mustn't have been invited to the dinner.

Otto sat at a table up the back, ignoring her performance since he seemed to be deep in conversation with the representative for the Minister of Transport.

She could see the clear divide between the regular Nazi divisions and HYDRA in the room before her. The other officers and ministers representatives sat easy in their shiny black dress uniforms, drinking and smiling genially up at the Siren singing before them. Their bodies angled away from the stiff HYDRA men, as if unconsciously rejecting them. It reminded Alice, bizarrely, of an unruly teenager who didn't quite fit in with the rest of the family.

But she knew, as perhaps the Nazis didn't, that this unruly teenager was up to more than mischief.

She allowed herself to express her frown – she was singing of revenge, after all – and threw her arms wide to belt out the final lines of the aria.

An hour later Alice found herself strolling down a dim, concreted corridor in the underbelly of the opera house, arm in arm with Doctor Zola. His feet shuffled on the floor beside her and his tuxedo chafed at her bare arm.

Alice had gone the usual rounds of the dinner party, flitting from table to table – she'd barely had _anything _to eat, her stomach was grumbling – and she'd heard quite a few interesting things. The HYDRA lieutenants were gruff and unwilling to speak to anyone outside their circle, including the luminescent singer who'd just given up her main course to sing them an operetta. Alice would have felt offended if she hadn't already wanted to shove their steak knives through their trachias.

The non-HYDRA attendees, on the other hand, were very happy to gossip about HYDRA. All she'd had to figure out was who was actually in the know and who was just making stuff up. It turned out even ministers' representatives knew a surprising amount.

Alice had only come across Schmidt briefly, at the photo opportunity as everyone stood around drinking champagne. The photographer had hustled them together and Alice had barely noticed who stood tall and looming to her left before the photographer's flash bulb nearly blinded her. When she turned, he was gone again. He was faster than he looked.

After unsuccessfully flirting with one of the HYDRA generals for about fifteen minutes, she'd spotted Doctor Zola lurking by a side door to the theater, trying to hide in the shadow under the alcove like some kind of light-shy rodent. Schmidt was nowhere to be seen, and the assembled guests had closed off into their own groups. There was no place for a lone doctor amongst all that. Alice sensed that the HYDRA lieutenants didn't pay him much mind.

Alice had slipped into the darkness beside Zola and flashed him a commiserating smile. "Don't like crowds either?"

He'd adjusted his bow tie and avoided her gaze. "I am… not a people person. Unlike you, _Frä__u__lein._"

"You'd be surprised," she'd said with a hint of a grimace, then nudged the side door open with her toe. "Come, _Doktor_, I could do with some quiet."

And he'd just… come with her.

He'd been mostly quiet at first, listening as she showed him around the underbelly of the opera house. She'd performed here dozens of times before, so she knew the building's secrets. The main theater dazzled and rebounded with the noise of dozens of different conversations, but these were the service corridors: sound got absorbed in the close, insulated walls, and if you didn't understand the marking system it would be easy to get lost in the muted silence.

Alice had just shown him the rigging storage, and had slipped her arm through his. She was slightly taller than him, and he went stiff and uncomfortable at the contact, but Alice ignored it.

"I was surprised to get the invitation to this event," she said, after describing her last performance. "I'm still an up and coming artist, really, and I'd heard that Herr Schmidt's division resided outside of Berlin." She smiled across at him. "I met you all once before you know, in Bavaria. I was just a girl then."

"I remember," he said with a small, uncomfortable smile. He kept on walking down the narrow corridor. His trousers swished as he walked, and Alice suspected they were a size too large for him. He cleared his throat. "We almost didn't come back."

"Oh?"

"These are dangerous times. Schmi- we thought it might be safer to stay where we were. But loyalty won out, in the end." The underbelly of the opera house wasn't well ventilated. Zola's forehead beaded with sweat.

Alice smiled. _So Schmidt suspects the main Nazi leadership of plotting against him_, she surmised. _And I don't buy the 'loyalty' bit for a moment. He came to do some snooping of his own. _Zola seemed to think nothing of what he'd said. _The best intel is the intel they don't even know they're giving._

"Herr Schmidt seems to inspire loyalty himself," she said politely. She knew about the cult-like obsession within his troops, how they overloaded new recruits with nonstop propaganda, sleep deprivation, and occasionally hallucinogenics. She knew they had thousands of soldiers at their disposal. It didn't hurt to find out more.

"You mean our soldiers," Zola surmised.

She wrinkled her nose as she ducked a little to dodge an overhanging pipe. "They're not very friendly."

He laughed, and she was surprised at how normal it sounded. "They are not intended to be friendly, _Frä__u__lein._" There was an edge to his voice: a low darkness. Alice instantly reevaluated him. _This is no hapless scientist caught up in a situation too big for him. He likes the power and prestige._

"No, I suppose not. But you all seem different from the last time we met."

"Schmidt has proven himself a worthy leader," Zola explained, sounding almost tired. "He achieves incredible results. Superhuman. A leader with the power of the gods."

Alice's eyebrows raised. She'd heard bits and pieces of Erskine's work with Schmidt, but… "My. Worthy of inspiration indeed." She laughed a little, truing to gauge how much further she could push. She leaned in. "Though I don't think my priest would approve."

His smile in reply was almost sarcastic. "I don't mean _that_ God." Alice frowned and he shook his head. "It's… nothing, really." She felt his giving mood slip away, and he looked around. They'd come to a junction. "Where are we?"

Alice eyed the white painted markers on the walls. "We're near the generator room. Oh, there's a beautiful old disused dressing room near here I used to hide in sometimes." Perhaps with a few more moments of privacy he might tell her what he meant by _gods. _She was sure it had something to do with HYDRA's incursion into Norway. "It's over… here."

Alice turned the creaky metal doorknob to the black-painted door that had so often been her respite as a lonely teenager. Zola hovered in the corridor behind her. The door swung open to darkness and the familiar smell of mothballs and dust. Her nose wrinkled at another smell – some kind of chemical.

And then she noticed the dressing room wasn't entirely dark. A single electric flashlight stood on its end on a table inside, dimly illuminating the far side of the room. There was movement, and Alice's eyes caught on the silhouette of a man hunched over the table. She frowned, peering –

A glimpse of scarlet, a flash of furious white eyes, and a violent howl: "_Get out!_"

Alice lurched back like she'd been struck, practically knocking Zola over as she backpedaled out of the dressing room. She slammed the door shut behind her and gasped for breath, terrified. _What_–

"Come, _Frä__u__lein_," Zola muttered. He didn't seem as scared as her. He took Alice's arm and led her away with a haunted look on his face. Alice let him lead her. Her heart pounded in her chest and she couldn't get that image out of her mind's eye: surely she'd seen a ghoul of some kind. But she recognized the voice.

She was just starting to regain control over her gasping breath when she heard pounding footsteps echoing from behind them. She and Zola whirled to see Johann Schmidt thundering toward them, his dark eyes flashing from his pale face. Alice stared. He looked normal, if angry. So what had she seen in that dark room?

"_Doktor_ Zola," Schmidt snarled, narrow eyed, and Alice felt almost surprised that he wasn't yelling. "_Why _are you down here?"

Zola swallowed and physically leaned away from his leader. "We were just walking, we didn't think-"

"That much is evident," Schmidt spat as he turned on Alice. She felt suddenly very exposed, in her high heels and her white performance dress which left her arms and upper chest bare.

"And what gives _you _any interest in a man such as this?" he demanded of Alice, gesturing to Zola. He loomed, seeming to suck up all the darkness of the narrow corridor.

Alice didn't bother trying to hide her fear. But she did muster enough courage to meet his eye. "I'm fascinated by brilliant minds, Herr Schmidt. Do you deny your servant his brilliance?"

Schmidt cast an eye over Zola. "No," he said disdainfully. "I suppose not." He turned back to her. "So you consider yourself an _Intelligenz_, do you Siren?"

Alice smiled shakily. "Oh I could never claim such a title, I'll leave that to you scientists. I do appreciate spending time in the company of minds sharper than my own, though." Her mouth quirked. "It's refreshing, after spending all day with chorus girls." She despised herself for the dig, but it worked. She almost rejoiced in the glaze that went over Schmidt's eyes as he dismissed her. He reached up to the back of his neck, wincing as if his clothes were uncomfortable.

_Don't relax yet, _she told herself. Her heart still thundered at his crackling, dark energy of moments ago. _Don't play too dumb, don't play too smart._

"Say," she began, "you were there for my performance earlier. Do you enjoy music?"

He turned cold eyes on her. Zola remained silent at her side. "I was there. I appreciate your choice in music. Mozart goes too often unappreciated in this era."

"A fan of Mozart! You have excellent taste."

The compliment rolled off Schmidt like oil off water. His eyes were still on her, sharp and knowing and possessive in a way that she really wasn't used to from men. He didn't _want _her, but he felt like he owned her all the same.

Alice saw now that he couldn't be swayed by attraction or compliments, like she'd been able to lead Zola. Schmidt was a singularly driven man with passion for one thing only: power. There wasn't much she could do to manipulate him besides stroke his ego, oh so carefully, and show him how scared he made her. That, at least, wouldn't be difficult.

"You have never _really _performed _Die Zauberflöte_ before, have you?" he said rather than asked, narrow-eyed. Schmidt took a step toward her and Alice shuffled back a little, angling behind Zola. _Let him think of me as a grasping socialite, angling for powerful friends._ His eyes bored into hers. _Let him think of me as anything other than what I truly am._

"No," she replied evenly. "Though I was the lead in Tosca for a time when I was younger. One day I hope to take on the role of Brünnhilde-"

He took another step forward, and Alice swallowed. She didn't know why she'd told him that, she supposed she'd wanted to tell him as much truth as possible to ease his suspicions-

"The _Valkyrie_." His eyes sparked. "Wagner's heroine. She meets… an unpleasant ending."

If it were anyone else, Alice would assume they thought she didn't know the opera and were being condescending. But she knew Schmidt hadn't underestimated her. He knew that she knew the story: that Brünnhilde perished after a multitude of tragedies by riding into the funeral pyre of her fallen lover with a cursed ring, bequeathing the cleansed gold to the women of the water.

He knew, because he had just seen, that Alice could bring men to tears with her renditions of tragedy. Schmidt knew all this, and it chilled her to her bone.

He leaned in. "Tosca, the Queen of the Night, and next Brünnhilde," he mused. He cocked his head. "What is it about women who meet a violent end that calls to you, Siren?"

Thankfully he didn't seem to require another airy, witty comment. The disturbed look on her face seemed to be enough because he smiled, bowed his head once, and walked back the way he came.

It occurred to Alice that all that might have been punishment for surprising him.

As she stood dumbstruck in the silent corridor, Zola shifted at her side.

"Shall we walk back to the party?" he suggested meekly.

Alice nodded, mute.

They walked back most of the way in total silence. Zola seemed to understand.

But then, as the lights grew brighter and the sound of the party started to echo down the maintenance corridors, Alice remembered she had a job to do.

"Is he always like that?"

"More or less," Zola sighed. "More so since…" he cut himself off.

Gently, Alice pushed. "He seemed different last time. What changed?" Erskine never did find out the extent of what their experimentation had done to Schmidt.

"_He_ did," Zola said darkly. "But he is… a great man."

"Oh I can see that," she agreed, careful not to let it sound sarcastic. "You seem quite dedicated to him."

Zola's face did something complicated, his eyes going dark behind his glasses. "He has great visions. He can help me achieve my own."

"Your visions? Scientific breakthroughs, no doubt?"

"You have… no idea," he said in that dark, greedy tone. But then the golden lights of the party fell on his face and the darkness subsided. He leaned over to kiss her hand. "Until next time, _Frä__u__lein. _I hope to hear you sing again."

"You're welcome to visit any time, _Doktor _Zola." She made her parting smile just flirty enough to make the man swallow, then she swept back into the warm embrace of the party.

* * *

She and Otto met with their handler in Switzerland the next week after the regular monthly performance, and passed on their notes from the HYDRA dinner.

Alice's report was short, but direct.

_Schmidt is too smart to be manipulated. He's changed since the experiment with Erskine: he's more paranoid, power hungry, ambitious. He's detaching himself from the Nazi leadership and forming his own agenda, with an army loyal to only him. The Nazis believe they can keep him under control and have even dismissed him as a threat, but he has his own independent base, resources, and army. He's able to do whatever he likes._

_The rising tension between HYDRA and the main Nazi leadership bears potential for manipulation. Perhaps turning them further against one another would mitigate further losses to the Allies._

_I also believe Schmidt is suffering medical setbacks from whatever procedure he underwent. He had to leave the function and seemed upset when intruded upon. I suspect a skin condition or hair loss of some kind. He may be using cosmetic measures to disguise it._

_Zola's intelligence equals Schmidt's, but he is insecure. A coward. He may be manipulated through the promise of power and resources, or threat to his own life. But he should never be trusted._

_HYDRA seems to have bases in most European countries, against Nazi wishes. There was word of a U-boat base in the Mediterranean. I suspect from the various comments about cuisine that it is located on the Greek coast. A HYDRA lieutenant also mentioned a 'power source' to his comrade outside the men's bathroom._

* * *

September 1942

For Alice's twenty fourth birthday, she threw herself a massive party in Berlin. It ended up bigger than any her uncle had ever planned, thanks to the reach of her newfound fame, Otto's maneuvering, and the desperation of the German elite for something to celebrate.

Alice's backup singers led a massive chorus of _Happy Birthday_, and after much prompting she took the stage herself to sing the old song _Im wunderschönen Monat Mai_, about a lonely knight visited by a fairy bride in the evenings. She walked offstage beaming at the applause, and went to cut her cake.

The real reason she'd thrown the party, of course, was so that she and Otto could fish for every piece of information they could about the Russian Front. The German Army was storming towards Stalingrad, and things looked grim. The SSR – and the Allies – knew that Russia would be crucial in turning the tide of the war, so Alice and Otto had been tasked with getting everything they could to help the Russians and earn their trust.

Alice danced and laughed with people she'd known for years, many who'd attended her uncle's funeral, who'd celebrated her successes and given her invitations and recommendations to the highest strata of society. They were mostly politically and militarily connected, but she'd made sure to form other connections so as not to be suspicious: restauranteurs, cinema and museum owners, athletes (though everything ended up tangled in the war at some point or other).

To Alice, these were her _contacts_. But she knew they thought they were her friends.

It was strangely painful to wield friendship as a weapon. On her birthday, especially, it struck her. But her heart didn't waver. These _friends _had chosen to stand on the backs of those weaker than them, so Alice wouldn't hesitate to tear them down.

As she reflected on this, sipping a drink as she made her way over to the representatives from the Propaganda Department, she bumped into a tall woman with a blonde updo and a pinched look of displeasure on her face, wearing a plain brown dress. She looked to be maybe four or five years older than Alice.

"Oh, hello!" Alice said with a smile. _I know her. How do I know her? _At the woman's slightly wary look, Alice placed the memory: this was the Propaganda Department senior secretary, who'd been at that meeting where they'd confronted Alice with her 'dark past'. "I'm sorry, I've so rudely forgotten your name…?" Alice had been so rattled that she hadn't thought to remember.

"Inge," the woman said. She didn't offer her hand. "Inge Richter." From the look in her eyes, Alice guessed that Inge hadn't forgotten what she'd learned about Alice. Alice flicked a glance over her and picked out the _SS-Gelfolge _(the women's wing of the SS) pin on her breast pocket, and the plain wedding band hanging on a chain around her neck. _War widow, then._

Alice smiled. "What did you think of my performance?" she nodded to the stage.

"I'm not much of a one for music," Inge replied. She glanced over Alice's shoulder. "I'm fetching drinks for Herr Miller and the others, excuse me…"

"Of course." Alice stepped aside and the secretary walked past.

_Hm,_ Alice thought as she stepped into the circle of suited men who welcomed her with a cheery chorus of birthday wishes. _It seems the charm doesn't work on everyone._

The next day Alice visited her private post box to find a letter from the _Thomas Cook Office. _She tore it open to find a joint letter from Steve, Bucky, and her brother. They'd written it together, their separate handwriting scrawling down the paper, and had signed the bottom together. They must have sent it weeks ago to make sure it arrived on time for her birthday.

Alice cried when she burned the letter. Some days she felt she was falling further into a world that was changing her. It comforted her to know that her heart was safe back in Brooklyn.

* * *

Alice spent the rest of the month in careful preparations with Otto for a big performance she had planned in Warsaw. She hadn't been to Poland in a while as the situation there had grown tense, what with it now being the homeland of the largest resistance force in occupied Europe. They'd assassinated General Heydrich and were running a targeted campaign of military resistance against the Germans.

Meanwhile, the Nazis had begun deporting Jews out of the Warsaw ghetto.

And yet the Siren would go. A beacon of hope for the weary soldiers and administrators manning the occupied city. Posters of _Die Sirene _(or _Syrena _as she was known in Polish) hung from buildings still ridden with bulletholes from the siege of the city three years earlier. Kiosk owners hawked tickets to the performance with enthusiasm in their eyes – not many artists came to Poland any more. Her records played on the radio, a kind of siren call: _come._

When the night arrived, Alice sat patiently in her dressing room as Heidi patted her cheeks with powder. Another girl stood behind her with a flatiron, curling her hair into wisps. The dressing room bustled with backup singers and theater workers, a veritable tide of people. Alice heard the _twangs _and squeaks of the orchestra setting up in the pit, and beyond that, the distant hum of the audience.

Otto perched on an empty dressing table. "… and we've got a full house of over a thousand, since they squeezed in more seats in the aisles. You'll need to use your big voices tonight, ladies," he said to the backup singers, who practically buzzed in their seats from excitement.

Normally a performer of Alice's caliber would have performed in the Warsaw Grand Theatre, but it had been blasted to smithereens by the Nazis when they invaded. They'd booked the Roma Theatre instead, a vast hall with vivid red trimmings and the latest in electrical lighting. Alice had stood on the stage before the empty theater this morning, as she liked to do before performances, and breathed in the silence. She'd worked hard to make this night happen.

"Isn't it wonderful, Alice?" exclaimed Freya, the youngest singer at just nineteen, as she swept past with an armful of ribbons. Freya was one of their regular hires – not resistance, just there to sing. Only one of the girls doubled as a spy and courier. Alice liked them all: they all had wonderful voices, and despite some homesickness when they traveled, were tough as nails.

Freya met Alice's eyes in the mirror. "All of those people who've come just to hear _you. _You've practically stopped Warsaw in its tracks!"

"Not just me," Alice said with a smile as Heidi patted her cheekbones with blush. "You too, all of you. I couldn't do it without you."

That set all the girls off either thanking her or profusely denying her statement, and Otto looked on with a quirked brow.

"It must be nice for these men to hear a voice from home after so long at war," he added in his low voice. Alice met his eye. _Always playing the part._

Jana, a vibrant redhead who'd also been a regular hire, leaned over. "It's true, Alice. Even Captain Sauer has come out to hear you sing!"

Alice's eyes went round. "Truly?" Captain Sauer was known to be almost a recluse.

The stage manager, who'd come in to hand the lighting arrangement folder to Otto, looked over. "Hush, Jana. You know that's meant to be a secret."

Jana ducked her head.

"Oh, of course," Alice said. "What an honor! Let's keep it to ourselves. Perhaps he'll call on me afterwards." She looked up at her eight gathered chorus girls and winked. "I'll have to practice my surprised face."

They all burst out in laughter, and after a quick smile Alice pursed her lips so Heidi could paint them red.

The stage manager gave the sign, the curtains rose, and Alice and the girls launched into their first song: _Berlin is Still Berlin_. Their setlist began with an uproar of patriotism, but softened towards the middle – some of Alice's original pieces, some operettas and art songs. These were more complex to sing. She felt the girls taking her every lead, syncing their breaths and voices to hers. It was a heady feeling.

As she slowly brought her hands to her chest in the crescendo of the chorus of _Wertvolle Wörter_ [_Precious Words_], the song she'd written as a tribute to her lost home, Alice felt her audience holding their breath. Their eyes were on her, utterly entranced. Even that captain, enticed out from wherever he'd been hiding, was up in one of the VIP boxes unable to stop listening to her.

_Listen_, she said with her voice. _Listen to me, and none other. You are mine, and I will not release you until the last note fades._

The backup singers' voices softened and Alice's crested, pealing out of her in a high, full note that filled the massive space of the theater. She felt all the threads of her performance stretching in the balance, woven throughout the room, connecting each person in her audience.

The spell shattered at the _crack _of a gunshot.

With the acoustics of the theater the sound was deafening, cutting Alice off mid-note and making her flinch.

For half a moment the theater was silent save for the resounding echo of the shot.

Then Alice opened her mouth and _screamed._

As if broken from a spell the whole crowd started screaming too. The audience rippled as people dove for cover or shot to their feet to run for the exits. What had once been a cresting, lilting song became deafening pandemonium.

Black-clad attendants rushed the stage, and Alice's view of the audience was swallowed up by pressing limbs as she was grabbed and rushed off stage. As attendants and screaming backup singers dashed by her, her gaze darted around.

A man's body lay draped over the lip of one of the upper theater boxes, one pale hand dangling into empty space. Blood dripped over the ornate side. The man wore a black dress uniform, and Alice caught the glint of medals on the man's chest.

A second shot _crack_ed through the theater, and Alice's heart went cold.

_That's the nameless, faceless assassin. Taking his life to spare mine, and everyone else who brought this about._

Darkness fell over her face as she was dragged backstage, but not before her eyes lingered on the scarlet blood dripping from the theater alcove.

A faint hint of guilt thrummed in her gut, but a moment later it faded.

Captain Sauer was one of the most reticent of all the Nazi leaders. An engineer and a doctor, the SSR had been getting intelligence for months that he'd been working with HYDRA since before the beginning of the war, running biological experiments on living people. He'd also spent time recently with a man named Doctor Mengele. Sauer had a brilliant mind, but death followed him wherever he walked.

A month ago, they'd gotten word that Sauer intended to take his research from his work in the Warsaw ghetto and join HYDRA at their main base. The SSR barely knew what he'd been up to, but the danger he posed was clear.

Alice trembled as she was rushed downstairs, through warren-like corridors to the emergency bunker set up in the underbelly of the theater.

_He murdered hundreds_, she thought, seeing the man's limp body in her mind's eye. _He'd have murdered thousands more_.

She wished she could wipe them all away so easily.

The emergency bunker was already packed with theater staff and members of the audience. Alice put on her best performance of the night: she burst into a hysterical fit, weeping and gasping so fast that she worked herself into a bout of hyperventilation. _Help me_, she cried, grasping for the doctor, and he began giving orders: _lay her down, fetch her a glass of wine, settle down __Frä__u__lein, you weren't hit. It wasn't you._

Minutes later the Warsaw SS chief (who'd been in the audience) burst in with a veritable army of officers. Alice mentally prepared herself even as she hyperventilated, sure that they'd come to question her. She'd prepared for this.

But the Gestapo men's eyes slid right past her as they moved to question the event organizers and guards, demanding to know who was in charge and how one of the Polish resistance could have gotten into the theater.

Alice blinked. It was as if she were just a film they'd come to see; not a person, but the entertainment. Otto might have to answer some sticky questions, and who knew, maybe they'd come back for Alice later, but for now she was nothing.

Alice's backup singers gathered around her, weeping and hyperventilating as if they were still taking her lead.

With her nerves alight and a bitter vindication burning hot in her throat, Alice sucked in a shuddering breath and then fainted dead away.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_The Astonishing Assassination of a Nazi Recluse', _by Ales Svoboda (12 February 1950) [Translated from Czech]

_Evidence suggests that the assassination was coordinated by Allied forces (specifically, the British Special Operations Executive and the American Strategic Scientific Reserve), in conjunction with the Polish resistance. It's unknown how either side determined Captain Sauer's whereabouts, as he had been in hiding both from the Nazi leadership and the general public. But the intelligence they were able to retrieve told them not just that the Captain would be attending the event, but the exact box he intended to sit in. From there, the Polish resistance were given access to the theater by unknown agents to carry out the assassination._

_... the infamous Siren, whose performance Sauer had come out of hiding to attend, was reportedly deeply distressed by the killing, and was hospitalized for a day following the incident. She cut her Czechoslovakian tour_ _short and returned to Berlin._

* * *

**_~ You seek to make play as a Valkyrie, burning warrior woman cursed to die. You are so much more. ~_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I want to thank beckmessering for helping me to figure out where Alice would be in her opera career at this stage, and for suggesting lots of different pieces Alice could perform!
> 
> And seriously, the female spies who were active in World War II are the f***ing best. They're 90% of the reason I wrote this story. Virginia Hall? Badass. Nancy Wake? Badass. Josephine Baker? Badass. When Nancy Wake parachuted into France to help the resistance she got stuck in a tree, and the French resistance leader came up and said "the trees in France bear such beautiful blossoms this year" and Nancy just replied "Don't give me that French sh**". She also killed a Nazi sentry with her bare hands to prevent a mission from going detected. Virginia Hall had a f***ing artificial foot named Cuthbert, and when she was escaping the Nazis she contacted the SOE like 'hey, I hope Cuthbert won't cause me any trouble' and they didn't know wtf a Cuthbert was so they said 'if Cuthbert troublesome, eliminate him'. History is hilarious, you guys. And filled with f***ing badasses.


	33. Chapter Twenty Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well a lot's happened this past week all over the world, I hope you're all okay and that you're staying safe and out of public as much as possible. I know this is a scary and uncertain time, but we're going to make it through ❤ and I know I've been in need of a distraction, so this week I'm going to post a second chapter on Wednesday. It's not much, but it's what I can do. Enjoy ❤

Extract from "_Song Throughout Time,_" by Kasper Hansen (2012)

_... this melodic technique was best employed by the renowned skáld (poet) Eirik Kjellson, active between 920 - 940 AD, though it's unknown what became of him after that period. Many of his lyric verses live on today thanks to the Nesna Manuscript, discovered in 1920..._

* * *

The Nazis in Poland meted out reprisals for the assassination of Captain Sauer, but they knew it had been the work of the Polish resistance and _they_ were a veritable army by now. They didn't know just how much inside help the Polish resistance had had. Their attacks on the resistance grew more furious for a few days before their attention drifted back to the Eastern Front. Thankfully no small towns were razed.

Alice and Otto cut the Polish tour short and went back to Berlin. Alice returned to find a flood of commiseration letters waiting for her at the post office.

_Dear Siren,_ read a letter in a child's handwriting accompanied by a charcoal drawing of Alice, _My mama told me you got a big shock while you were singing. I hope you're alright. I have all your records, even the ones from before the war. Lots of love, Mary._

Alice wondered at what point she ought to describe herself as a killer. She suspected she'd crossed that line long ago.

* * *

When Steve heard a timid knock at his door, he bounded over to open it. Bucky was due back on furlough after months at training. But it wasn't Bucky on the other side of the door: his eyes widened as he spotted Tom.

"Tom! Hello, come on in." They usually met up elsewhere, but it wasn't unheard of for Tom to visit Steve at his house. The teenager smiled sheepishly at Steve as he stepped inside and kicked off his shoes. "I assume you've got your letter for Alice?"

"I do," Tom said, fishing in his pocket for the letter to his sister. He handed it over, and Steve took it to the table where he kept Alice's last letter. "I was wondering," Tom murmured, "could you... show me? How to... code it, or whatever it is you do?"

Steve blinked. Ever since Alice had gone back and they'd struck up their correspondence again, Steve had been the encryption intermediary for Bucky and Tom. He'd decrypted Alice's letters for them, and encrypted their replies. They'd quickly gotten into a rhythm (save for some teasing from Bucky - he often wrote things in his letters just to make Steve embarrassed while he encrypted). "Of course," he said. "Take a seat."

Tom sat, tugging at the end of his sleeve. His hair was tousled from the wind outside, and his eyes flicked over the encrypted letters on Steve's table with interest.

"So," Steve said, pulling Alice's last letter toward himself. "Alice hides the next key in her previous letter. First, you need the date."

"17th of September," Tom read off the letter, leaning on his elbows.

"Right. So then you go to the 17th line of the letter" - Steve traced his finger down the page - "and the ninth word."

"_Glue._"

"So that's the key for the next code."

Tom nodded slowly, frowning, and at that moment the front door burst open. Steve flinched, about to rise, but then Bucky stuck his head in from the entryway.

"Hello!" he called brightly. "Oh, hello Tom!" As he kicked off his own shoes and walked into the room he focused on what they were working on. "Oh, good, I've got my letter too." He reached into his jacket to pull out a much-folded piece of paper. Normally he sent his letters to Alice to Steve, who encrypted them then sent them on to the Thomas Cook Office.

Steve rose and he and Bucky slapped each other's backs for a few moments. "Good to have you back," Steve told him. "The kettle's almost boiled."\

Bucky rolled his eyes as he walked into the kitchen.

Tom, who'd been watching them with a bemused smile, tapped Alice's letter. "So how does the word _glue _help us?"

"Right." Steve pulled out a fresh sheet of paper from under the pot of drying lavender. "Have you ever heard of a Vigenere cipher?"

Round eyed, Tom shook his head.

Steve launched into an explanation, drawing out tables and example sentences as he watched Tom's face for comprehension. When Bucky came out of the kitchen, haphazardly balancing three mugs of gritty, rationed coffee, he smiled at the sight before him: Tom scribbling out notes on a spare paper, tongue between his teeth as he looked back and forth between his letter and his notes. Steve leaned over to point out an error and Tom scribbled it out. Steve smiled at Tom's huff of frustration.

"You'll get it," Steve encouraged. "It took me forever to get my head around it."

Bucky set down their coffee, but only Steve noticed. "You'll make a coder of him yet," Bucky noted as he sat down.

Steve sipped his coffee with a pleased smile and watched Tom scrawl strings of seemingly nonsense letters on the paper. "It runs in the family."

* * *

In October and November the Siren toured occupied North Africa. They started in Morocco and traveled across the north coast to Algeria. The warm Mediterranean weather was a relief after the cooling temperatures in Germany, and if it weren't for what she did with her time Alice might have felt like she was on holiday; she dug her toes into the sand on long white beaches overlooking the blinding blue ocean, shaded her eyes as she surveyed an endless plain of sand dunes, and stared out the car window as the driver took them through the beautiful, bustling streets of Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. In Rabat she clung to the crenelations of a sunset orange castle and looked out across the Atlantic.

She'd gotten sunburned on the first day, and poor Heidi had fussed and tutted her tongue as she patted Alice's face with powders and creams before that evening's performance in an effort to make her look less like a lobster in a wedding dress.

She hardly performed for the public at all. This tour had been set up with the Propaganda Department with the explicit purpose of putting on performances for the troops. Mediterranean breeze flowed through sprawling barracks housing thousands of soldiers wearing the desert-brown _Afrika Korps _uniforms.

On the most part they were respectfully enthusiastic toward the Siren as she toured through their barracks in her flowing white dresses and painted face, though she grew used to the sounds of catcalls. Some of the more explicit things that were yelled at her made her blood boil. She never let it show in her face. One man dropped to his knees in the dirt and asked her to marry him. Alice couldn't find an ounce of a joke in his face.

At Goebbels's department's request, for several of the concerts Alice forewent her usual costume and instead wore a military uniform. The soldiers went wild when she walked out on stage in the officer's uniform with its tall black boots and desert-colored cap, and the red swastika wound around her backup singers came out behind her like a line of non-commissioned officers, goosestepping in time. She sang the songs she'd written for the Nazis, dressed as a Nazi, to a crowd of raucous Nazi soldiers in the desert air, and felt her stomach sinking to her boots.

When she raised her hand and cried _Heil Hitler_, eliciting a deafening response from her audience, she felt herself disassociate. That was happening more and more often – it was as if she was looking at herself from outside her body, watching _Die Sirene_.

When she came off stage she bumped into Otto in the dressing room. He cast his gaze over her with a funny look in his eye.

"I know," Alice murmured. She tore the hat off her head and dropped it on the dressing table. She began pulling at buttons and trying to uncinch the tight leather belt from around her waist.

"I was just going to say-"

"I know," she cut him off. "Help me get this thing off." She couldn't deny that wearing the uniform was remarkably effective as a performer and as a spy, but every glance she caught of herself in the mirror made her stomach flip dangerously.

Performing for the troops was a veritable goldmine of information. The North Africa tour had initially been suggested by the Propaganda Department, but Otto had leapt on the opportunity. Alice didn't know the details, but it was clear the Allies had a vested interest in getting immediate, up-to-date information from Morocco and Algeria.

So she and Otto drew up maps of barracks and ports, counted troops, chatted with everybody from commanders to footsoldiers, and Alice even managed to swipe a few German codebooks from a radio room. With those books the Allied troops in the Atlantic would be able to understand every transmission the Germans sent each other for a week: an invaluable resource. Once the week was up, Alice spent her off hours listening to transmission radio wavelengths softly in her room with a pad and pencil, putting her mind to the codes, trying to crack them. Everything she deciphered she wrote down and put in one of the various drop boxes set up in each city she performed in. Anna, their only backup singer who was also resistance, had a "beaux" in Algiers that she was always off disappearing to see. It was an easy way to get their information out without raising suspicion.

These countries were remarkably well-set up for counterintelligence. Alice soon learned that a member of the Polish resistance had set up an intelligence organisation called _Agency Africa_ months earlier, and they'd been collecting information for the Allies ever since.

From the frequency and nature of the requests for information from their handlers, Alice suspected that the Allies were doing more than monitoring the situation in Morocco and Algeria: they intended to attack.

Her hunch was proved right when, before dawn on the 8th of November, the British and American forces launched simultaneous U-boat and air invasions of the three main ports in Morocco and the two in Algeria, effectively cutting the Germans off from the sea and fencing them in. Alice didn't find out the details until later, of course. All she knew was that she was woken up in the pre-dawn darkness by alarms and then the shattering blasts of bombs and gunfire.

She, her retinue, and the other German civilians were evacuated east in blacked-out trucks to Tunisia. The backup singers huddled together, pale and wide-eyed in their pajamas. Alice had peeked through the back flap of one of the trucks as they climbed a cliffside road and saw massive troop carriers and U-boats sailing across the water toward Algiers, lit by the sunrise. The truck turned a bend and she caught a glimpse of black silhouettes charging up a white beach like so many ants. Her heart leaped at the sight. The truck bounced and the flap flipped closed again, shrouding Alice in darkness.

In Tunisia there was some back-and-forth via telegram to Berlin about whether the Siren should continue her tour to boost morale for the now beleaguered and encircled troops – more had been sent from the Eastern Front to Tunisia after the invasion. Alice was all for it, because she'd be able to keep up the stream of information for the British and American forces, but the Propaganda Department eventually decided they couldn't risk one of their biggest performers across the Mediterranean in such an uncertain environment.

The end of the telegram from Berlin read: _ON YOUR RETURN WE HAVE NEW OPPORTUNITY IN MIND STOP VISIT PD OFFICE AT EARLIEST CONVENIENCE STOP_

Otto shrugged at Alice's confused frown, and began packing his bags.

* * *

Excerpt from article "_Operation Torch: The First Strike Back_" by Helen Cook (1990)

_Launched on the 8th of November 1942, Operation Torch was one of the first Allied lightning-attacks to push back the German front lines. The British and the Americans had agreed to team up for the attack, to relieve pressure on the Eastern front by drawing German attention to North Africa._

_A massive Anglo-American fleet of 350 warships and 500 transports landed 107,000 troops in Morocco, seizing the three major ports and fighting against Vichy French Nazi-allied troops, before moving east to Tunisia. Despite fighting French forces in Oran, in Algiers the Allied forces were assisted by French resistance. Intelligence from within the occupied countries was vital to securing the ports._

_The leader of the Vichy French forces (Admiral Darlan) soon capitulated to the Allies, causing Hitler to order the occupation of the rest of France. and concentrating forces in Tunisia. Darlan was eventually assassinated, and after some political troubles the Free French dominated the administration of North Africa._

_Within eight days the Allies had secured their goals in North Africa, giving them a strong foothold in the Mediterranean, a symbolic victory over the Nazis, further French assistance in the war effort, and taught them lessons about planning and executing such collaborative, large-scale operations. It also began a new phase of the war: where next?_

* * *

A week later Alice and Otto sat side by side on a couch that stank of cigarette smoke, across a low coffee table from seven Propaganda Department representatives. Alice wore a giant fur around her neck and a pair of massive pearl earrings, and felt faintly ridiculous.

Inge, the blonde, blue-eyed secretary, stood by the door of the sunny meeting room with her hands clasped behind her back.

"You've seen our latest productions, I'm sure," the main producer Karloff was saying, half leaning across the table towards Alice. "They've topped box offices across the Reich, the people love them. They're wonderful for boosting troop morale as well."

_Probably because they're the only films available anymore_, Alice thought. She knew the Propaganda Department had released some films, but she hadn't seen many of them – actively tried to avoid them, if she could. They were all the same patriotic, xenephobic nonsense in the end, and she knew they were more of a response to the propaganda movies the Allies kept putting out.

Otto folded his hands over his stomach. "I saw the latest one, _Hitler's Dream._ It's very good – it's a wonder how quickly you're able to film and produce them."

Karloff smiled. "Well, with the support of the _Führer _and his cabinet, many doors open." He shifted and faced Alice once again. "We are all agreed that our next production ought to star _you_, _Fraülein _Siren." Alice's eyes shot wide open. "People know your face and your voice, and seeing you on the screens would warm their hearts."

Alice's mouth fell open. "I… you want _me _to be in a film?" For a moment she thought: _It's a trap. _But she didn't understand how. Beside her, Otto had leaned forward. The production men were all smiling, as if they'd given her a gift.

The man to Karloff's right cleared his throat. "The script is already finished, and our director just signed on last week. You'd be co-starring alongside our best leading man, Karl Schneider. You've seen his work?"

Alice nodded numbly as the men in the room began talking back and forth about the proposed film. Schneider was a brawny, Aryan-looking man with blonde hair and blue eyes and a cleft chin. In his last film he'd fought off a whole troop of American GIs with one hand literally tied behind his back, shirtless, for some reason glistening with oil like a Roman gladiator.

"What's the name of the production?" Otto asked. He'd pulled out a notepad and pen.

"_Love and Victory on the Front_," Karloff said casually. Alice fought back a grimace. "Filming would start almost immediately, so we'd have to get started on the contracts this week. What d'you say?"

All eyes turned to Alice.

"I…" she swallowed. She'd been expecting another proposed tour when the Propaganda Department said they had another _opportunity. _This was… unexpected. "May I think about it?" She sensed Otto tense beside her, though he didn't say anything, and she knew that they were going to fight about this.

Karloff's easy smile dropped. "Of… course. We'll need to know by" – he checked the calendar on the wall and then glanced back, but not before looking to Otto as if for help – "by tomorrow."

Alice smiled. "I hope you know I'm truly flattered by the offer, all of you." She met their eyes. "I just want to make sure it's the right decision for my… career."

They nodded at that, though they still looked uncomfortable. They weren't accustomed to being told _no_. Inge the secretary scowled. Alice's eyes flicked to her right and she saw Otto looking stormy. Oh, they were definitely going to have a fight.

They did.

Alice balled her hands into fists as she paced back and forth over the rug in her apartment. "I can't be in a Nazi movie, Otto, I can't!"

"Why _not_?" he asked exasperatedly from the couch. He'd slumped onto it and was now looking across at her as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

She turned on him. "Well for starters I don't _need _to. What purpose would it serve?"

"It'll give you an excuse to stay in Berlin, so we can collect information about the offensive in Africa _and _Russia." He began counting things off on his fingers. "Filming a production like this will get us both close to every single bigwig who comes through Berlin. It'll give you the _perfect _excuse to ask questions about the war. The level of fame from the cinema will likely open more doors." He lifted a fifth finger. "And if you refuse they will _always _be looking at you out of the corner of their eyes, wondering why."

Alice swallowed. Her heart had been pounding since the offer was first made, and she wasn't sure why. Surely it wasn't all that different from her dozens of other performances?

"I've never been in a movie!" she protested. "And they want me to be the _lead_!"

"That's true, but think of it this way: you've been an actress for years. Only this time, the stakes are much lower. If you make a mistake they can just cut the reel and start again." He let out a sigh and then rubbed his chin, eyeing her. "I know why you're nervous."

She stilled. "You do?" _I don't._

He sighed again. "You put your soul into your singing. I know it. But it's still different from appearing in film. With a song you can give them your voice, and it'll be etched onto a record and sent out on the radio waves. But in a movie? They're going to capture your face, your eyes, your being. It will be undeniably Alice Moser."

Alice felt a prickle go down her spine. "You're right," she murmured. "I've done and said awful things for this mission, Otto. But what will this make me?"

He ran a hand over his jaw again. "It won't make you anything other than what you are, Alice. A soldier." He leveled his gaze at her. "I can check with the SSR about this, but we both know what they're going to say."

Alice grit her teeth. He was right, of course. A film opportunity could open up a wealth of information. _Damn it all._

At the back of her mind, she wondered just how much the papers in the States reported on the German film industry. She'd come this far being able to keep her life in Europe vague in her letters to Steve and Tom, and as far as she knew they'd never heard any news otherwise. How would they, given that Germany had banned all foreign reporters?

She swallowed. _I can't let the fear of being found out stop me._

She dug her fingernails into her palms and met Otto's eyes. "Alright. I'll do it."

* * *

Excerpt from article "Karl Schneider and the Siren film deal!" in the _Völkischer Beobachter (_Nazi Party newspaper), November 1942 [Translated]

_In exciting news, the Siren has signed on to be the co-star in an upcoming Karl Schneider NSDAP movie, to premiere in March next year. This writer looks forward to hearing the Siren's enchanting voice on the big screens, and being moved by the German Aryan spirit._

* * *

It was an absolutely _rubbish _script. Alice almost quit on the spot the first time she read it. The Propaganda Department always did this: they bottled up what they thought it meant to be a 'loyal German' and hammered the audience over the head with it. It was why their music always fell so flat.

_Whatever, _Alice eventually told herself, _I'm not in this to make a work of art._

It was like Hollywood but in hyperspeed: she had a few weeks to learn her lines, be fitted for costumes and undergo screentests, and then they started filming just after November rolled into December. Alice didn't take to acting quite as smoothly as Otto had predicted; it was different with the director and crew watching her every move, asking her to _smile wider _or _cry after that line_. The scrutiny made her skin crawl.

_Liebe und Sieg an der Front _[_Love and Victory on the Front_] was the story of a German soldier on the Eastern Front and his wife – Alice – who'd stayed behind in Berlin. The first half was a whole load of rot about making do in times of hardship, during which Alice's character sang songs about missing and being proud of her husband as she prepared care packages for the soldiers at the front. Alice grew used to long days of beaming and dancing her way across sets with hot lights threatening to melt her makeup off, while the director yelled at her. One of the least terrible songs from the whole film was a chorus piece about the resilience of the people of Berlin.

She worked late nights and early mornings, in and out of the makeup chair, rehearsing lines as she fell asleep.

Her costar Karl Schneider, she had to admit, had a wonderful baritone. It all felt so sour though. In the second half of the movie Alice's character, Magda, got word that her husband was MIA, and travelled out to the Eastern Front to find him. There were lots of shots of Alice (in full makeup, of course) travelling in a headscarf across a snowy landscape, meeting heroic soldiers with chiseled jaws, and struggling through the trenches. The final climax of the movie came with Alice's character being kidnapped by a snarling Slavic man with some vague notion of doing her harm.

Her husband (who had been valiantly fighting behind enemy lines) got wind of her plight and came to rescue her. Alice and Karl Schneider had to film the scene where he carried her out of the bad guy's basement as she clung to his chest, weeping, about thirty times. Alice's eyes ached. And right after that they had to film their dramatic kiss on the setpiece meant to represent the battlements of Stalingrad. Schneider tasted like whiskey and cigarettes, and he grabbed her waist so hard that Alice had to fight off a wince. The film ended (finally) with the two of them returning behind friendly lines just as the army broke through the Russian defenses and secured victory.

The movie was very blatantly about the Battle of Stalingrad, which was still being fiercely fought in Russia even as they filmed. The real battle wasn't going quite so easily as the one they played out on their brightly-lit sets.

Otto stayed with her whenever Alice was on set, which wasn't strictly necessary but made all the difference. She'd found herself in such a strange, false world and his familiar face made it easier.

The whole process made Alice's skin crawl, but Otto had been right; it seemed every other day some politician or general was visiting the set to meet the latest big stars, and Alice had an open invitation to every star studded party in Germany. If she'd thought she was famous before, being the star of an upcoming film was another level. She rubbed elbows with the people who ran the country and the war, and picked up information from them like a magpie with glittering trinkets.

Otto passed on their new connections to the SSR, and in return they passed back assignments on each person of interest: _investigate that minister's family tree, we're certain there's an illegitimate child that could be used as leverage. Where does the General intend to be on Saturday? What does the troop commander think about HYDRA? Does he know where any of their bases are?_

The film was useful for the connections it gave her, but it frustrated Alice to be unable to travel outside Berlin. She got invitations from multiple occupied countries for her to perform, which excited the Propaganda Department but which she was unable to accept, and numerous opportunities for the SSR came up, which she had to pass on to other agents.

In December, news of mass executions of Jews hit Britain and America like a bomb. Alice barely heard the news, because of course the German papers weren't reporting on it, but when Otto told her she let out a great sigh.

She and Otto had been working toward this for months. The SSR had requested any proof they could get of the disappearances and murders of Jewish people. Alice had passed along everything she'd heard the Nazi higher ups saying, and the stories from the resistance underground. She'd even traveled back to Vienna and had Noah, the Jewish man who'd escaped one of the trains bound east, dictate his story.

Alice and Otto hadn't been able to get anything concrete, but their handler had said anything would help. And now no one on the Allied side could pretend they didn't know what was going on.

_They know, _Otto murmured, with heavy shadows under his eyes. _Now they must put a stop to it, as soon as they can._

Alice had chewed her lip. Because she knew that it would only stop with the end of the war and the utter destruction of everything the Nazis had built; a momentous task.

She couldn't wait.

Two weeks before Christmas, a young officer visited the movie set with some other government types. Alice and Otto had done their research as per usual: Kurt Ohlendorf, an _SS-__Hauptsturmführer _(mid-level commander) in the _Sicherheitsdienst_, the Nazi intelligence service. An interesting connection, but he'd shown up with bigger fish so he'd been low on the priority list.

But then he kept coming back.

The first time he returned to the set he arrived with the director, laughing and joking, but quickly turned his attention to Alice.

"It's wonderful to meet you again, _Frä__u__lein _Siren," he said as he took her hand with a smile. He had neatly combed strawberry blonde hair, a long slanted nose, and protruding ears. Alice thought nothing of it.

The second time, he arrived with a bouquet of yellow carnations for Alice and walked her outside to her waiting driver, talking about the many fine food establishments thriving in Berlin even in the midst of the war.

After that, Alice and Otto went on high alert. An officer from the _Sicherheitsdienst _(SD) was not to be underestimated. But after four more visits from Kurt Ohlendorf, once to her apartment, Otto called her over to his offices.

"I've been in touch with the SSR, and they say that Ohlendorf isn't an intelligence agent. He doesn't run missions. He works for them, sure, but SSR intelligence says that he's just an administrator-"

"He's not exactly low down in the chain of command," Alice protested.

"Apparently his uncle was Heydrich" – Alice's throat tightened at the mention of the Nazi leader who'd been assassinated in Czechoslovakia partly thanks to her intelligence – "and that's how he got his position. They can't exactly have the war hero's nephew doing grunt work."

Alice put her hands on her hips and paced across the carpet. "Then if he's not an agent, why does he keep visiting? Are you sure about the SSR's intelligence?"

Otto spread his hands. "We may have to open ourselves to the possibility that Herr Ohlendorf _likes _you."

Alice halted and scowled at him. "Don't be ridiculous."

But it made sense. Men had chased Alice before, of course: flirtations at parties, letters slipped under her door, but she'd become a pro at turning them away so efficiently that they thought it was their idea.

Alice ran her tongue over her teeth frustratedly. "Well. I'll just send him on his way then." She made for the door.

"Hang on."

She stopped again and looked back. "Otto. No."

He stood up and circled his desk. "Alice. The boy works for one of the most secretive agencies of the SS, has nothing better to do than visit other departments all day, and clearly isn't the sharpest if they've stuck him with a fancy uniform and a desk. He has family connection to Nazi leadership. And our plant says that the SD is investigating HYDRA. He could be useful."

Alice crossed her arms. "You're not suggesting we try to turn him."

"Not at all. I'm suggesting that you let him take you out on a date."

"_Otto-_"

"I don't like it any more than you do, believe me, and I'm not suggesting that you take him to bed, Alice. Just… play into his ego a little. Let him invite you to his office. But be safe."

Alice wanted to keep arguing, but he was right. Still, she raised an eyebrow. "Starting affairs with Nazi leaders isn't necessarily a good idea, Otto." Goebbels' mistress Lída Baarová had been reprimanded by the Führer himself, forbidden from leaving the country, forbidden from performing, and hounded by the Gestapo until she finally fled to Prague before the war. Alice couldn't afford to have anyone looking at her that closely.

Otto's face darkened. "I know. But the boy isn't married, and I know you, Alice. I know you'll be careful."

Alice's tense fury abated. _I didn't think I would have to do this_, she wanted to say, but it sounded ridiculous even in her own head. She'd been making friends with Nazis for years now. What was the difference between that and allowing one of them to court her?

_Nothing_, she told herself. But as she drew in a deep breath and left Otto's office, pointedly avoiding thoughts of Steve, she couldn't help but feel that she was stepping over an invisible line.

* * *

Alice and Kurt Ohlendorf began seeing each other. They just went for lunch the first time, and Kurt told Alice about his mother and how he used to spend his summers as a boy. Alice told him lies in exchange. After that, it was almost easy. They went to the movies, to coffee and dinner, and Kurt walked Alice home from the film set. He pulled out her chair for her and bought her flowers.

Their 'budding romance' was of great delight to the idle celebrity photographers of Berlin, who liked to snap photographs of them walking arm in arm down the street or sitting across from each other at restaurants and print the photos alongside headings like '_Winter is the season of love_'. Alice wanted to tear the papers up, bring the shredded pieces to the publishers and scream _don't you know there's a war on? _But it was all so ridiculous that she settled for screaming into a pillow and then focusing on her work.

Whenever she was with Kurt, her gut churned. Alice had flirted and used her connections plenty of times before. But all of this – the jokes over dinner and the fleeting touches – reminded her very vividly of _Steve_ (even though he'd never had the money to buy her flowers or take her to restaurants like _these_) and it made her feel worse than ever before. How could she ever explain this to him? She avoided most physical contact, telling Kurt she wanted to take it slow, but she'd had to give him a peck on the lips a couple of times (once at a party, once when he'd just leaned in and kissed her) and those had ended up in the papers too.

Alice thanked her lucky stars that German papers didn't make it out of the country anymore, then felt awful for the wish.

_I've been lying to Steve for years_, she told herself one evening as Kurt introduced her to a senior officer as 'My Alice'. _Why is this different? _Kurt slung his arm around her waist.

_It is different._

* * *

Joseph Goebbels, 1943:

"_The Fuhrer gave expression to his unshakable conviction that the Reich will be the master of all Europe. We shall yet have to engage in many fights, but these will undoubtedly lead to most wonderful victories. From there on the way to world domination is practically certain. Whoever dominates Europe will thereby assume the leadership of the world_."

* * *

In early January, Kurt invited Alice to visit his office. The _Sicherheitsdienst _(SD) was one of the seven departments of the Reich Main Security Office, and so was based in the long, looming office building on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße in the heart of Berlin. Alice cast awed eyes up at the glinting windows of the building as she and Kurt walked from the car. This building housed the SD, the _Sicherheitspolizei_, the administration wing of the _Einsatzgruppen _death groups, and the Gestapo. She'd never been inside the main offices before.

The Reich Main Security Office had become a massive bureaucracy and was always reorganizing, so even Kurt had limited access throughout the building. He gave her a walking tour; introducing his colleagues, pointing out the various departments and explaining what they did. Alice nodded and asked the occasional question, but though she pretended to pay attention her focus was everywhere else: she read everything in reach, memorized names, scrutinized calendars on the walls of each office, and formed a mental map of the massive building. It was startling how many documents they left lying about. Most of what she read was probably useless but she committed it all to memory anyway, desperate to make the most of what was likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime visit.

She made sure to ask for the bathroom when Kurt was distracted in a conversation with his boss (who didn't seem to put all that much faith in Kurt's abilities to multitask), so that she'd get directions instead of an escort.

Freed, Alice strode down the surprisingly wide, spacious corridors and got herself lost. Well, that was what she planned to tell anyone who questioned her. She drew herself tall and thought _I belong here, I belong here_ as she walked across the length of the SD department halls. She'd spotted a meeting of some kind when she and Kurt walked into the SD, and had spotted a map of North Africa on the wall. She wanted to find out more.

But when she found her way back to the meeting room, she saw through the window blinds that the small group of uniformed men were getting to their feet, shaking hands and exchanging nods. The sounds of chairs scraping on the floor echoed to the corridor outside. _Damn. Meeting's over. _She squinted, trying to make out any details on the map of North Africa that hung on the wall inside.

But then the doorhandle turned down, and her gut clenched. She stood alone and in civilian clothes outside a meeting room. She'd spotted some seriously senior insignia on the men within, and they were likely to recognize her. Alice could prepare to bluff, or she could hide.

_Choose._

Alice threw herself backward, slamming down on the doorhandle behind her and practically falling into the room beyond just as the meeting room door opened. Alice swung her door shut behind her and then whirled around. White tiles, stall doors. _Bathroom. _Her nose wrinkled. _Men's bathroom_.

Then the door she'd just shut behind her began to open. Instead of flinging herself backwards again Alice darted forward and slid behind the opening door, where a small recess was set into the wall for storing mops. The doorhandle hit her elbow as she dove for cover.

Two male voices echoed past her, their footsteps clipping on the white tile as they entered the bathroom, and Alice squeezed her eyes shut as she pressed up against the inside of the recess in the wall. _Perfect. Now if they catch you you'll be in more trouble than ever. _She doubted an apologetic smile and a stupid comment about how she had a terrible head for directions would be enough to divert suspicion after getting caught hiding in the men's bathroom of _this _building.

The bathroom door swung shut, leaving Alice exposed. She was still out of view, since after the entrance you had to turn directly left to enter the main bathroom, but she no longer had the door covering her. Her skin prickled. A mop handle was digging into her spine.

She was so busy chastising herself that she didn't properly pay attention to the conversation of the two men who'd just walked in until they mentioned a very significant name.

"All I'm saying, Hans, is that you needn't be worried about Casablanca." Alice's eyes snapped wide. She heard the sounds of zippers, and then urination. She gritted her teeth. "Our agents at the hotel are well undercover, and all we have to do to ensure success is name the day."

"But a failure would-"

"We have the assets to spare, Hans-"

The bathroom door flew open again and Alice just barely contained a yelp. She heard another man walk into the bathroom, his breath loud and his shoes squeaking on the tile. Alice's gut clenched. _I have to get out of here._

"Colonel," said the man who'd been speaking to 'Hans' in a near-laughing tone. "Will you tell Hans he has nothing to worry about?"

Alice held her breath and slid out of the hollow recess in the wall, keeping the tiled corner of the wall between herself and the urinals. Her eyes were glued to the corner, and when she saw the black flash of a uniform she slipped closer to the door. Her heart thudded against the inside of her ribcage and her gut was churning so hard she thought she might be sick.

"I won't speak about this any further outside of the meeting, and neither should you," came the gruff voice of the newcomer. The voices fell silent.

Another _zip _sound, followed by the rustling of movement.

_Please, wash your hands_, Alice begged as she wrapped her fingers around the doorhandle and slowly, carefully turned it. Her back was turned to the main entrance to the bathroom and she felt as if her back was on fire. The door eased open silently.

"Well, I suppose we'll see one way or another in a few weeks," came Hans's voice. It sounded much closer.

When the door was halfway cracked Alice couldn't bear it any longer, and dove outside. She didn't stop to ease the door shut again or even to see if there was anyone else in the corridor. She just strode back the way she'd come, her face neutral and her muscles screaming with the effort to _not run._ Ten seconds later she heard the bathroom door open again. She didn't look back.

She held her head high all the way back to Kurt's office, just as his boss walked out of it. She smiled to his boss and then to Kurt when she strode inside.

"You were gone a while," he noted absently, sorting papers on his desk with an overwhelmed look on his face.

Alice dropped down into his office chair. "There was a queue for the bathroom."

* * *

That evening Alice burst into Otto's house. Otto, who was used to this by now, made her a cup of tea and they bent their heads over his dining room table.

"_Casablanca_," Alice echoed when she'd finished describing what she'd heard. "That's-"

"Where the Allies are having a conference to plan their strategy for the rest of the war. In two weeks." Otto normally seemed unflappable, but his eyes had grown wide as Alice told him what she'd heard.

"And apparently the Germans have agents at the conference hotel," Alice added. She knew which hotel in Morocco the conference was being held at, she'd stayed there on her tour. It was under Allied control now. She bit her lip. "I didn't hear _enough._ It sounded like they hadn't chosen a date yet but I don't even know what the goal is – it sounded like some kind of attack, and obviously they were trying to keep it secret."

"We can pass this on, but the SSR is going to need more than this. This is one of the biggest conferences of the war. The Nazis could just be planning an intelligence gathering mission, but I doubt it. Churchill _and _Roosevelt are going to be there, either of them could be a target. Also the Free French are going." Otto rubbed his temples. "You can't exactly go back to the _SD _office."

Alice sat down on his couch and closed her eyes. "Well, who do we know who'd have access to this mission?"

"Top down? Hitler. Whichever Minister is managing this mission, probably Himmler since he's the head of the _SD, _maybe also the head of the _Einsatzgruppen._" Alice's eyes opened, but Otto kept talking. "You mentioned a Colonel, we could figure out who he is, and a _Hans. _There'll be documentation, there has to, especially with the conference so close now. They'll be worried about detection in Morocco, not back in _Berlin_-"

"Otto," Alice interrupted. She swallowed. "I've got that party on Friday. The one Kurt invited me to."

Otto frowned at her over his glasses. "Why, who's going to be there?"

"It's not about who's going to be there," she murmured. "The party's at Kurt's uncle's friend's house. _Heinrich Himmler's _house." Otto stilled. "Everyone knows it practically doubles his office, and like you said there has to be documentation." She swallowed. "I could-"

"What, break into the office of one of the most powerful men in Germany while the house is full of people?"

"Yes." Alice stared him down. Her palms were sweating where they rested on her knees, but a strange calm had fallen over her. "We can do it."

"I'm not invited, Alice."

Her eyes bored into his. "_We can do it._" She swallowed. "I have an idea."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to comment!


	34. Chapter Twenty Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another super long one sorry! You'll see why I'm REALLY sorry in a bit though. (Also if you know anything about codes please don't come after me for my fudging)
> 
> Also to note, the final 'article' is real and comes from ' German History in Documents and Images (GHDI)'
> 
> TW: Antisemitism

**Pliny the Elder, on sirens: "they charm men by their song, and, having first lulled them to sleep, tear them to pieces."**

* * *

Heinrich Himmler, commander of the SS and one of Hitler's most trusted men, lived in a mansion in the heart of Berlin.

As their car rolled up the paved driveway, Alice stared out the window at the tall brownstone. It had peaked rooves, dozens of glittering windows, and manicured hedges lining the front. It had to be three stories high. Kurt told her about the history of the house as she eyed the golden light spilling out of the windows across the lawn, silhouetting the soldiers standing guard.

They stepped out of the car and servants ushered them inside. Kurt helped Alice remove her black velvet and ermine coat, baring her arms to the firelit warmth inside the house. A grand staircase reared up before them, and to their left flung-open doors revealed a wide space packed with people, with _three _crystal chandeliers and massive windows overlooking the dark garden. Everyone wore uniforms and evening gowns; they weren't celebrating anything in particular, but if you got an invite to Himmler's house, you dressed up.

"My goodness," Alice murmured.

"This is one of the finest houses in Berlin." Kurt, in his shiny black dress uniform, smiled and cocked his elbow so Alice could wrap her hand around it.

Alice wore a satin silver dress with embroidered patterning, which pooled around her feet. She'd pinned her hair away from her face to fall in curls down the nape of her neck. As they walked into the main room, a photographer snapped their photo.

Alice felt a sharp focus come over her as Kurt introduced her around the room. She knew mostly everyone already, but she strengthened old acquaintances, laughed at stupid jokes, and pressed her finger to her lips when people asked her about the upcoming film.

"You know I can't tell you!" she protested lightly. "Don't press me, I can't keep a secret to save my life. I know you'll like it, though."

The night slipped on, with a brief pause for a speech from their host and a round of champagne in honor of the _Führer _("even though the man doesn't drink at all," a commander's wife noted wryly by Alice's side). Alice didn't glance at the clock often, but she was keenly aware of the time. She picked up drinks and set them down discreetly elsewhere, without drinking much more than a glass. The room was loud with dozens of overlapping conversations and clinking glasses.

At 11:08, Alice disentangled herself from Kurt and drifted across the room; he barely noticed, as he'd grown used to her flitting from one conversation to another.

When she slipped out of the room and into the quieter corridor beyond, Alice leaned against the wall and waited a moment, wineglass in hand, listening. The corridor was empty, as the servants had their own passageways, and the soldiers were all outside. She drew in a deep breath.

A minute later, the volume of the room behind her spiked. Alice slipped down the corridor, turned right into the main atrium and climbed up the grand staircase, her footsteps silent on the carpet.

Otto had connections in most major social hubs in Berlin. This included the brothels. One of his connections at the most popular brothel in Berlin had been seeing a certain client for a few months now: a very famous client indeed, in the highest strata of the Nazi party.

This woman had secured herself an invite with her client to Himmler's party. Alice had nearly stopped in her tracks when Otto had told her that; the man in question had a wife, but apparently hadn't needed a lot of convincing before inviting his mistress to the party.

But Alice wasn't involved in that side of things. All she knew was that at exactly 11:10PM, the mistress planned to fly into a fit of rage at her client. At the shouts and sounds of crashing glass from the main room, Alice almost wished she could be there to hear it, and to see the faces of the guests.

But she'd already reached the top of the stairs and paced down the darkened corridors beyond.

At the dimly-lit main junction of the upper corridors, Alice paused. She couldn't see light pouring out from under the cracks of any doors, which was a good sign, but she also didn't know where Himmler's office would be. Otto had found some original architecture plans for the house (though they were from 1910), so Alice headed in the direction of the original main office. She still clutched her full wineglass in the hopes of being able to use an 'oops, I got lost!' excuse, but the further she went the less effective that would be.

Alice's eyes flicked down, and her gaze sharpened. The carpet at her feet was clean and well-maintained, but the best servants in the world couldn't keep a carpet from being worn down by hundreds of boots. There was a well-worn track down the carpet leading to the door at the end of the corridor. _The most-visited room in this house has to be the office._

She hurried toward the door and tried the handle. Locked. _Another good sign._

Alice dropped to her knees, pulled two pins out of her hair and pressed them into the lock. She could practically hear Peggy in her ear: _you don't pick a lock. You push it back out of its housing until it's no longer aligned with the latch. Like so._

As she pushed the pins against the lock, manipulating it back, she held her breath to listen to the house. She could hear the main party still: a high, female voice was shouting something, with a hubbub of voices in the background. She couldn't hear anything on her floor aside from her own heartbeat in her ears.

Once she'd dislodged the lock, Alice tried the handle again. It clicked open to reveal a dark room with the vague silhouette of a desk by the window. Her heart leaped.

She retrieved her wineglass from where she'd set it down and slid inside the office, closing the door behind her. Then she retrieved the flashlight she'd stuck down the front of her dress and switched it on, careful to keep it pointed downwards so the light wouldn't be visible through the windows.

Like the rest of the house the office was spacious, with three filing cabinets, two desks (one for a secretary no doubt) and a few chairs and a low table set up for meetings.

Alice's dress whispered across the floor as she went to the secretary's desk. She took a moment to memorize the layout, then began rifling.

There was _so much. _Alice flipped through letters, order briefs, reports, photographs of soldiers and civilians, maps, budgets. And this was just what was in the secretary's desk drawers. Alice did her best to retain what she skimmed through, but she had _one _goal tonight and she could not allow herself to be distracted. Her fingers were nimble as she scoured the desk's contents, the flashlight held in her teeth and her hair falling in her eyes.

Flicking through a folder in the first drawer, she found a draft of a speech. She was ready to skim past it when she saw a penciled-in date in the top corner: _January 20th?_ Ten days from now. The middle of the Casablanca Conference. Alice's eyes darted over it: it was a celebration speech of some victory over the Allies in North Africa. The top paragraph had been left blank for details, making the whole thing vague and frustrating. Though it did say _'this is a great victory for Germany and for Italy'_. If the Italians were involved that could help with the SSR's search in Casablanca.

Alice finally slid the draft back into its folder then moved to Himmler's ornate wooden desk. It was thankfully well organised. He had separate drawers for the separate departments he oversaw, and an in tray on the top of his desk. The skin on the back of Alice's neck prickled. She guessed she'd been gone five minutes at most, but even that could be too long. _This mission, whatever it is, is in ten days. Surely he must be working on it now._

She skipped over the drawers and went straight for the in tray. She rifled through paperwork needing signatures, reports on bureaucratic matters and – her fingers stalled on a telegram labelled _GEHEIM _[_CONFIDENTIAL_]. Her gaze flicked over it, but it was gibberish. A random assortment of letters-

_It's encrypted._

Alice's heart squeezed almost painfully. Time was slipping away and all she had was a vague victory speech with an uncertain date. She couldn't let all this effort go to waste.

She stared at the mash of letters. Her temples were sweating.

A moment later she took in a sharp breath through her nose. _A Vigenere cipher. Okay. Okay. I can do this. _She ran a finger over the lines, picking out patterns. She didn't have time to take notes so she had to hold it all straight in her head. A headache bloomed between her eyes.

Her fingernails bit into her palm. This wasn't _working_, she didn't have the key and this telegram could be nothing, she was wasting time.

_Wait. _Normally with Vigenere ciphers she assumed that _E, N, or I _was the most commonly recurring word in the German alphabet. But if this telegram was about what she thought it was… _Casablanca_ had four _A_s in it.

She reworked the cipher in her head, running through mental alphabet tables.

_There._ She hadn't quite figured out the key but she'd figured out the pattern, and _that_ word could only be:

_CASABLANCA._

Alice let out a louder sigh than she probably should have, then yanked out the napkin and pencil she'd brought with her. She hastily copied down each line of the telegram, not bothering to decode it.

She stuffed the napkin down her dress along with her extinguished flashlight, her heart pounding. _No time to look for anything else. Now to get back down without being_-

The door opened.

Alice froze halfway between the desk and the door and met the intruder's eyes in the gloom. He was a little older than her, wearing an officer's dress uniform. She'd met him at the party, she realized: he had dark hair and light eyes, and he'd introduced himself as _Albrecht_. At the time she'd flicked her eyes over the insignia on his uniform and thought: _not useful._

But now she stared into his pale, confused green eyes and realized that her life now rested in his hands.

He frowned at her, one hand on the doorknob. "_Frä__u__lein_ Siren? What are you…" she'd already set everything back the way it was and hidden her flashlight, but she was standing in the dark, in Heinrich Himmler's previously-locked office. Alice opened her mouth, thinking of how to talk her way out of this.

But then she saw it all come together in the officer's eyes. Suspicion flooded his face and made Alice sick to her stomach.

He took a step toward her, hand outstretched. "_Frä__u__lein_, I think I had better take you to-"

Alice didn't stop to think. She stepped forward and slammed the side of her open hand into the man's temple, just the way Peggy taught her: rigid bones, every ounce of force she could muster.

The man dropped.

Alice dropped too, her knees thudding on the carpeted floor and her fingers landing on the man's – _Albrecht's_ – throat.

Her own heartbeat pounded and thrummed against her skin. But she couldn't feel a pulse beneath her fingertips.

_Surely that isn't all it takes to kill a man?_

But she kept kneeling there, waiting to feel a flutter, and there was nothing. She glanced to his face and her heart slammed against her chest when she saw that he had one eye half open. But his pupil was frozen. Lifeless.

Alice's stomach dropped, then heaved. She slammed a hand over her mouth and focused very hard on _not vomiting._

Albrecht didn't move. He didn't do anything.

Alice took a breath. She was kneeling on the floor of Heinrich Himmler's office with a handwritten code on a napkin stuffed down her dress, and a dead man lying in front of her. A man she had killed.

Her stomach didn't heave again. She didn't let it. She realized that the side of her hand was aching – she flexed her fingers and hissed a breath through her teeth when her pinkie finger pounded with pain. _No time._

Alice got to work. She swept her eyes over the office to make sure she'd left everything as it had been before she appeared, and slid her wineglass just outside the door. Then she grabbed Albrecht around his middle and heaved him backwards, out the office door and onto the worn-down corridor beyond. His body made a strange sliding sound against the carpet.

Once his feet cleared the doorway she set him down and turned to close the door. She tweaked the lock back into place with a hairpin (it might stick or fail in the coming days, but it wouldn't be obvious it had been broken into), then picked up her wineglass and precariously placed the rim between her lips, so she could carry it without her hands. Wine sloshed beneath her nose.

Now. She dropped to a crouch by Albrecht, grabbed his arm and heaved him up, maneuvering his horrifically limp body until she had him in a fireman's carry. She drew in a long, deep breath, balancing her and Albrecht's centers of gravity, before pushing into a standing position. Peggy had trained her in this. Albrecht weighed heavy on her shoulders, making her legs shake and her neck strain, but she had him.

Alice wobbled down the corridor with the dead man on her shoulders. She didn't go in the direction she'd come from as the main staircase was too risky. She headed for another staircase she remembered from the architect's plans, letting out a breath of relief when she reached it. This stairway was in a dark, unused part of the house. She eased Albrecht down at the top of the stairs and he slumped against the wall, limbs sprawling. _Yes, he's dead_, Alice thought distantly.

Her breath felt like ice in her lungs, sharp and painful, and sweat trickled down the back of her neck. She took the wineglass from her mouth.

Albrecht still had one eye half-open and unseeing, his head lolled on his shoulder where he was propped up against the wall. His dark hair stuck up on one side. Alice's vision swam; she stopped seeing Albrecht, and she started seeing a corpse.

Her breath came fast and her heart pounded. But she didn't have time for that.

Taking a breath to keep her fingers from shaking, Alice poured the contents of her wineglass out over Albrecht's black dress uniform. The sharp smell of alcohol filled the air. Then she dropped to a crouch and set her hands against his side. He was still warm.

Alice _shoved_, and the body pitched sideways down the dark, cold stairs. She turned away so she didn't have to see, but she heard it: the strange, oddly muted sound of his body falling, followed by a final _thud. _Alice flinched_._ She spied a light switch on the wall. She hit it, flooding the staircase and the corridor below with light. _Let them think he turned it on._ She didn't look back. With one last breath to steady herself, and a final check that she had everything she'd brought with her, Alice slipped back through the house.

Alice slid through one of the doors into the main room of the party just as the Nazi commander's mistress was escorted out the other, which had the handy effect of making her entrance unseen. She quickly lost herself in the throng of laughing conversations and clinking glasses, her head spinning. As she reached up to wipe sweat from the back of her neck and make sure her hair didn't look crazy, her eyes flicked to the ornate golden clock.

_11:25._

She'd been gone fifteen minutes.

_Is that all?_

"Alice!"

Kurt's voice. He slid up beside her. "Oh, your drink's empty, _Perle_," [_Pearl_] he murmured in her ear. "Let me fetch you another." He took the glass from her numb fingers and moved away again, leaving her alone amidst the bright lights and flashing teeth.

Alice felt, abruptly, like bursting into tears.

_You don't have that luxury_, she told herself harshly. She took in a breath through her nose. _You are the Siren, and you are at a party. Act like it._

She saw a familiar face and swept into a conversation with a trio of generals' wives, flashing them a warm smile. Within seconds she was asked her opinion on the latest winter fashions.

Alice had twenty minutes to drink and pretend to smile until she felt it sweep across the room. There wasn't a loud shout or a dramatic announcement like she'd expected. It spread like a rumor: _one of the guests has been found dead_. Gasps, excited questions. The Gestapo were called, and the soldiers banded around the house as if they were under attack.

But a minute later the tension lifted and the party broke up. They couldn't exactly party on into the night like they had intended to. A man had died. How unfortunate.

Himmler himself apologized to Alice and Kurt for the inconvenience. Alice didn't hear a word he said.

* * *

Excerpt from_ Geheime Staatspolize Incident Report, _January 10th 1943, Berlin [Translated]

_The deceased, Albrecht Schneider, was found at the bottom of the north stairs. After examination, Doctor Fischer gave a preliminary determination of death by epidural hematoma caused in a fall down the stairs, caused and exacerbated by alcohol consumption. Time of death to be determined later._

_The deceased's family has been notified, and security at _ _Reichsführer Himmler's domicile has been doubled as a precaution._

_... Recommendations: Stress the importance of temperance to officers of all rank in the Nazi Party._

* * *

Kurt drove Alice home. She sat in the passenger seat and responded automatically to his comments about the evening. Her hair was wild, sticking to the back of her clammy neck. She could feel the hard metal of her flashlight against her breastbone, and the faint tickle of the napkin with its pencil scribbles.

She felt… she felt… _tired. _She blinked, searching for more. _Feel something_, she demanded of herself. But she'd slammed a wall down against the upswelling of panic and horror back in that mansion, and she didn't know how to lift it yet.

So she sat, cold and tired, as Kurt drove her home. He parked, and walked her to her door, and kissed her. For a few moments Alice just stood there and let it happen. She felt cold inside and out, a gaping hollow in her chest. She'd carved something out of herself tonight.

But then Kurt's hand slid to her waist and his mouth was at her neck, and he was pressing her against the door. She felt the wooden ridges press into her skull.

Alice jolted back into her body and wanted to _shrivel._ She froze for a moment, resisting the instinct to strike Kurt like she'd struck that man. When she was sure she had control of herself she cleared her throat.

Kurt looked up finally, his pupils blown wide in the gloom.

"Thank you for driving me home," she said clearly.

He smiled hopefully.

She added: "I'd best be getting to sleep now. Goodbye, Kurt."

He clung to her a moment longer, and Alice's heart thudded, but then he sighed and stepped back. "You prove a mystery once again, _Perle_."

She opened the door to her apartment. "Women aren't that much of a mystery, Kurt." Then she stepped inside and closed the door in his face.

She couldn't call Otto. They'd agreed on radio silence that night, and she didn't know who might be listening to the phone. So she just… went about her normal evening routine. She peeled off her dress, set the flashlight and napkin in a hollowed-out book in her bookshelf, changed into her pajamas, washed her face. She eyed the purpling bruise on the side of her hand and gingerly moved her pinkie finger. She didn't think it was broken. She slid into her bed.

She thought she wouldn't be able to sleep. But after staring at the dark ceiling for a while her eyes slid shut and she just… faded away.

* * *

The next morning she met Otto at his office. He ushered her in and closed the door behind her, his body tense with energy.

"Did you get it?" He had bags under his eyes. He mustn't have been able to sleep last night.

Alice nodded and handed over the pencil-scribbled napkin. She'd decoded just enough that morning to know that it was information the SSR desperately needed to know (they were right, it was an assassination plot), but had stopped there. It was best if she didn't know the details. She'd scribbled the key, _SIEG [VICTORY]_, in the corner, and on the back she'd included a note about the draft letter she'd read and the possible mission date. "We have to get this to them right away."

Otto took the napkin from her gloved fingers, scrutinized it, then folded it in half. "We've got a drop set up for this afternoon." Alice moved slowly across the room, silent as a ghost, and lowered herself onto the couch. She felt tired to her very bone marrow. Otto looked up and finally focused on her face. "Are you alright? I heard the party got broken up because of some drunken fool-"

Alice had thought she might be able to keep this from Otto somehow. If she didn't tell anyone, maybe she hadn't really done it. But all it had taken was for him to _mention _it. Her breath shivered and she glanced down.

"I killed him." She barely recognized her voice.

Otto froze. "What?"

"The _drunken fool_." She swallowed. "He walked in on me in Himmler's office and I… I didn't have a choice. It was so _easy_." Her fingers clenched. "I poured wine on him and pushed his body down the stairs."

"Oh, _Alice_." She glanced up but it wasn't horror she saw in Otto's face. His expression was more open now than it had been since that night she'd broken him open. He slid the napkin into his pocket and strode across the room toward her, before sinking to one knee and taking her hand. "Alice. I'm so sorry."

She shook her head. "I was already a killer. This is just… a more immediate death."

He squeezed her hand. "I know. We are both killers, you and I." His brow pinched. "But that doesn't make it easy. And it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, no matter how deserving the victim."

He paused, letting his words sink in. Alice weighed what he'd said and found that it did make her feel a little better. He was good at that.

Part of her ached for how _unfair _it was: unfair for Albrecht that he had happened to walk in on her, unfair for Alice that she'd had to kill him. Albrecht was a Nazi. But he was by no means the worst of them, not even the worst in that house. But he'd been the one she had to kill.

It did hurt. But Alice would not take it back.

Otto sighed. "I'm proud of you."

Her gaze flew up to his, and he shrugged. "I am, whatever that says about me. You completed your mission and you did what you had to, so you could continue to help people. Without this information…" he shook his head. "They might have killed Churchill and probably Roosevelt at the same time. But we'll stop them. And if you'd been caught, I know the war would be worse off without you. You protect people, Alice."

She nodded jerkily. "I know. I know." _And now I kill them, too. _She bit her lip. "Let's… let's go make sure this information gets to where it needs to be."

He nodded, his eyes sad behind his glasses that he didn't need. "Let's do it."

* * *

_January 11th 1943  
Vienna  
_

_Dear Steve,_

_Thank you for your last letter, it made a long week bright again. Sorry to hear your job isn't going well. The sensible part of me wants to tell you not to quit, because even with all the factory jobs going it's not certain you'll get steady work again soon, but the rest of me says to hell with your boss!_

_I'm not finished with Brave New World yet since some work things came up, but can I put in a request for a cheerier book next time?_

_Thanks for the update on Tom, I hope by the time this letter arrives the cold has cleared up. No doubt Molly will be practically drowning him in her patented 'flu tea._

_I haven't been up to much really. I went to a party yesterday, but I didn't enjoy it. Sorry I don't have anything interesting to tell you. Although it sounds like Brooklyn's an interesting place to be at the moment, what with the docks getting even busier (I can't imagine it! They were already practically full to bursting with ships when I visited) and the new factories opening. Speaking of which, have you considered a job in one of those? That could be a good way to contribute to the war effort - I know, not the way you want to, but it would make a real difference. Every small thing will count._

_I have to sign off now, I've got a performance in half an hour. Stay safe._

_Love,  
_ _Alice_

* * *

Two weeks later the Allies announced all the resolutions from the Casablanca conference. It shook the German steadfastness, to see their rivals so organized. As one, the Allies agreed that they would seek _unconditional surrender _from the Axis powers: complete and total defeat. They'd also honed their strategy for the war going forward, and had come to agreements about how to progress the war in Europe and the Pacific. The next week, the Americans began bombing Germany itself.

Unknown by most of the Allied attendees of the conference, at 2AM the night before the major leaders arrived at the hotel, a squad of SSR agents kicked down the doors of six German and Italian agents under cover as hotel staff. One of the spies pulled a gun and was killed. The others were in interrogation by the time all the leaders had arrived. Their guns were confiscated and put into storage.

Churchill and Roosevelt were informed of the plot, of course, and agreed that it ought to stay a secret: let the Germans stew over the unknown fate of their agents, and never give them public credit for getting so close. Both leaders thanked the SSR, of course, and the agents who had arrested the spies.

_You've done fine work, _they told the agents. _But the world will never find out._

Alice and Otto met with their handler in Switzerland the month, and he offered them a smile. _We stopped it_, he said. That was all he would tell them, and that was all Alice needed to know.

* * *

Reddit Forum '_r/worldwartwo'_, subreddit posted 10 March 2008

_u/academania: Theory Thursday! So I came across this conspiracy while looking through newspaper articles from the sixties. Apparently back then the idea was going around that in 1943 there was a thwarted assassination attempt against Roosevelt and Churchill at the Casablanca conference. Click here to see the articles, which talk about how there are 'disappearing guests' on the hotel register, and evidence of foreign agents being taken into custody a few days before the conference began. Out there, outrageous, or a possibility?_

_u/sevenbox: that's crazy, sounds similar to the thwarted assassination attempt against them and Stalin at the Tehran Conference later that year, Operation Long Jump (though of course many people doubt that Operation Long Jump was real). This could be a 'missing link' proving a chain of assassination attempts against the Allied leaders._

_u/theprof: Nope, you've got to be mad to think this is true. The evidence is so weak, and German counterintelligence in the war was utter rubbish, there's no way they'd have gotten such a significant foothold in Allied North Africa. Source: I am a History professor._

* * *

A few days after the party at Himmler's house, Alice had a TV interview to promote the upcoming film and her music.

There was only one television station in Germany, _Deutscher Fernseh Rundfunk_, and while it was still in production despite the war Alice knew that not many people actually owned television sets. Still, the Propaganda Department had insisted.

The studio reminded her a little of the film set, with its bright overhead lights, the boom mics on looming metal supports, and the strange, boxy cameras. She'd prepared for this interview with Otto, but that didn't make it any easier.

The station newsreader, a man with blonde slicked hair, interviewed her. "_Frä__u__lein _Siren, do you believe in the Nazi dream?"

"Of course," she said earnestly. "This country is one of great visionaries, and I support them with everything I have. I'm excited for the future of Germany." She was careful not to say _Germany and Austria. _They were one and the same, now.

For the first half of the interview she smiled and answered questions as a cold fury oozed in her gut. But gradually, after dozens of questions and dozens of lies, the fury turned to numbness.

"What's your vision for the future of the Third Reich?" "What do you want to say to our troops?" "You're from Austria, the same as the Führer. What's that like?"

Alice lied through her painted lips and made it look beautiful.

* * *

Filming on the movie wrapped in January, and Alice's leash loosened. She began touring the country again, and in Munich she and Otto were put in touch with a different kind of resistance.

Alice had heard of the White Rose: the anonymous group had been leaving anti-Nazi pamphlets around Munich since June of last year. It hadn't been reported on much, but Alice heard lots of things that didn't end up in the papers. She was pretty sure her _Swingjugend _contacts had some connection with the group, which was confirmed when Liesl (one of her friends from Austria) asked her to get in contact with a group of students during her Munich tour.

She and Otto were wary. On the 13th there'd been a student riot at the university after Munich's Nazi leader gave a speech. Also, the White Rose hadn't been heard from for six months. But Otto agreed to let Alice meet with the students alone, under the cover of darkness. She was younger, so they were more likely to trust her, and she was the one with the connection to them.

So on the second evening of her tour, Alice bound her chest and stuffed her hair into a flat cap and strode onto the darkened campus of Munich university.

The meet was set for an unlocked university building on the edge of campus. It took Alice a while to find it, as it was difficult to find her way in the dark, but soon she found the dark-bricked building and slipped in.

She turned to find a small group of people waiting for her: five young men and a younger woman in a winter coat sitting around the room and an older man leaning against the wall. Candles flickered on a table at the middle of the room, casting them all in a yellow glow. They'd been mid-conversation when she arrived, but now they all looked up at her in silence.

"_Guten Abend_," she murmured, dipping her chin in a nod. Her eyes flickered around the room. Christ, they looked younger than _her._

One of the young men scrutinized her. "You're Liesl's friend?" Liesl had moved from Vienna to Munich last year.

Alice nodded. "Yes. She said you needed some help."

This time the older man, who from his suit and general bearing Alice guessed was a professor, spoke: "She also said that you would be able to help us transport these." He laid a hand on two rucksacks.

Alice met his eyes, then strode across the dimly lit room to peer into the rucksacks. She saw stacks and stacks of printed paper with large headlines: _AUFRUF AN ALLE DEUTSCHE! _[_APPEAL TO ALL GERMANS!_] Her eyebrows rose as she skimmed down one of the leaflets.

It began: _The war is coming to its certain end._ Alice's heart jumped. _Hitler cannot win the war, he can only prolong it! His guilt and the guilt of his assistants have infinitely exceeded all measure. A just punishment grows ever closer!_

She hadn't read the first four pamphlets but she knew they'd been aimed at the German _Intelligenz_, using the arguments of Aristotle and the Bible to turn support away from the Nazis. This paper seemed less like an intellectual argument and more of an appeal to the common man. Plus, this one was printed – they must have access to a printing machine.

She skimmed down to the end. _Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the protection of the individual citizen from the caprice of criminal, violent States – these are the bases of the new Europe. Support the resistance movement, disseminate the leaflets!_

Alice looked up. "You guys wrote this?"

The young students met her eyes with defiant glances.

"Yes," said the girl. She looked so _young_, her hair pinned back with a clip and a flower pattern on her dress. One of the men glanced over at her as she spoke and Alice's eyes flicked between them. They looked very similar.

Another young man spoke: "Can you help to disseminate these?"

Alice nodded. "Yes. Where do you need them?"

The young man who looked like the girl's brother met Alice's eyes. "Everywhere."

She stayed for another five minutes discussing arrangements before she shouldered the two rucksacks and turned to leave. But before she walked back into the night, she glanced over her shoulder.

"_Be careful_," she whispered. She'd only just met these young, idealistic students but she could feel their boldness growing. "This isn't just an intellectual battle, there are lives at stake."

"We know," said the girl, her eyes firm.

Alice held her gaze for another few moments before letting out a sigh. "Alright. _Lebewohl._" [_Farewell_] She turned her back and left them.

* * *

Alice and Otto brought the stacks of leaflets (hidden in makeup bags) with them on the rest of their tour to Innsbruck, Vienna, and finally to Berlin. Each place they went, they distributed the leaflets to their network to be mailed out.

Otto had read the leaflet silently when she returned, before looking up at her through his glasses. "You think this will do anything?"

She shrugged. "We're at a crucial moment, Otto. The Germans have stalled in Russia, and the Allies are binding together. Words like this" – she waved the leaflet – "could be what it takes."

He shot her a doubtful look.

"Either way, these kids are right. They have a right to freedom. If we can help them with that, even a little bit, it's worth it."

Otto still seemed doubtful, but he didn't argue further. They'd learned to trust each other.

* * *

At the beginning of February, after a month of defeats, the Germans officially surrendered at the Battle of Stalingrad. This was the first major defeat they'd suffered, and its ripples were felt across Europe. The German army was in retreat after losing a chunk of its soldiers. This was the first time that the Nazi war machine's strategies had failed.

More than that, the news of the defeat cast a pall across Germany.

Back in Berlin, Alice attended a sad drinking party with some Nazi generals. They began the night bragging about how Germany would strike back with all the fury of the Reich, but as the night wore on and more brandy was consumed, they were just drinking. No one said it, but it was clear something awful and significant had occurred. Alice poured herself generous glasses and drank to celebrate.

That didn't last long, though.

On the 18th, German newspapers proclaimed the capture of _dangerous terrorists_ in a brilliant move by the Gestapo.

The White Rose had been arrested.

Their names were blasted across the newspapers and their characters torn to shreds: siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, along with their friend Cristoph Probst, were in custody on suspicion of treason after they were found distributing their sixth leaflet at Munich University. The Gestapo were searching for others. Alice recognized all their faces in the pictures.

The arrests made Alice's heart plummet to the bottom of her feet – not only out of sorrow for the young revolutionaries, but also out of fear. She'd only met face-to-face with the White Rose members once, in the dark, and they probably didn't know enough about her to give the Gestapo anything under pressure, but it was a terrifying reminder of how close she could come to discovery.

But the days passed, and no one came to arrest Alice, so she could only assume Probst and the Scholls had kept their silence. They'd certainly seemed brave when she met them.

It moved very quickly after that. The three were brought to trial at the _Volksgerichtshof_ [People's Court], found guilty, and sentenced to death. They were executed the same day by guillotine. Alice found out about all of it in one go, on the radio.

On the same day, students at Munich university protested against the 'traitors within their ranks'.

Alice went cold when she heard that the _degenerate rogues _had been killed. Her heart ached for them.

_This is what awaits me if I'm caught_, she thought as the radio presenter began discussing the hunt for the rest of the White Rose. _These kids were only distributing pamphlets. What would happen to me, if they find out all that I've done?_ She stared at the black-and-white photograph of the guillotine.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Last Days of the White Rose,_' by Millie Schutz (2014)

_... after the tragedy of their capture, their rigid determination to protect their compatriots at all costs frustrated the German interrogators and likely saved the lives of many other White Rose participants. They faced two days of intense interrogation, in which the main investigator Robert Mohr attempted to save Sophie's life by prompting her to testify against her brother, which she refused._

_... during the trial, Sophie often resisted the judge (who had refused to allow the defendants to testify on their own behalf), once rising to shout "You know as well as we do that the war is lost. Why are you so cowardly that you won't admit it?"_

_Only hours later, she was beheaded by guillotine. She was only 21. Her brother Hans and their friend Christoph Probst (a father of three), both 24, were also put to death. Before the blade fell on Hans, he cried:_

_"Es lebe die Freiheit!" (_ _Long live freedom!)_

_These words were not publicized in German media at the time, and nor were Sophie's:_

_"Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go... What does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?"_

* * *

Days later, Otto knocked on Alice's door. She let him in, frowning at his breathlessness and the way he mopped at his balding forehead as he walked in.

"Otto?"

"I'm fine," he panted. "Water?"

She fetched him a glass. He'd gotten his breath back when she returned, so after taking a sip he met her eyes and said, very calmly:

"Tonight, you'll be performing for Hitler."

Alice frowned. "He's at the Eastern Front."

Otto shook his head. "He came back to Berlin for that state funeral yesterday." He sipped his water. "I just got word. He's coming to the opera house tonight, they've reserved a box for him."

Alice fumbled behind her for the kitchen counter, missed, and staggered backwards. She met Otto's round eyes. "Do the SSR know?"

"I've just sent a message, but it's not likely they'll have time to even get back to us. We don't have time to figure out a strategy for intelligence collection, we don't even know his schedule-"

Alice ran her tongue over her teeth. "I could kill him."

The apartment became very, very quiet. Otto froze where he stood and Alice couldn't have moved if she wanted to. The only sounds were car engines and distantly cawing birds from outside.

Alice felt shivery, energized. She'd only ever seen Hitler twice before: once at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, when the crowd had screamed out of sheer excitement when he'd appeared, and the other time at his speech at the Heldenplatz in Vienna after Germany annexed Austria. After that he'd become a distant, untouchable figure. Her career had only really soared after the war began and Hitler had passed over a lot of state appearances in favor of making war. He didn't get many chances to sit and enjoy music for an evening.

So Alice had been doing her work, and he'd been doing his. But now she could picture it so clearly: he'd come to see her sing. He'd visit her backstage afterwards, like all the other generals did, throwing their weight around, and he'd shake her hand. In that moment he would no longer be that distant, untouchable figure. He'd become real: just a body full of blood and nerves like the everyone else. A man. Men died easily.

_I could kill him._

"No," said Otto.

Alice's chest swelled. "Otto, this could be my only chance. They'd never expect it, I _could do it-_"

"There's no way the SSR would go for that, Alice. It's far too high risk, and besides, something like that would take _months _of planning and we don't even have 24 hours-"

"We don't need to ask their permission, we could just do it-"

"_Stop_." Otto surged towards her and grabbed not her wrists like she'd expected, but her hands. He pulled her hands towards his chest in a strange embrace and looked into her eyes. "You're a spy, Alice. Not an assassin."

Her stomach roiled. "Am I not? That's not what you said when we shot that general in Prague. Or when I killed Albrecht to keep my cover. If I'm to be a killer, Otto, let me kill the greatest killer of them all." Her tone was low, insistent.

He surprised her when his eyes welled with tears. "That is not what we need from you, brave one. That's not what the world needs from you."

"But he's-"

"The Nazi war machine will go on without Hitler. Surely you understand that." He didn't break his insistent gaze. Alice felt the ice storm inside her still a little. It was true – Hitler had built up a bureaucracy of war so complex that it powered on without his constant direction. Like the network Alice had built in Vienna, it had taken on a life of its own now.

Otto squeezed her hands. "Help us to pull apart the machine."

Alice was alarmed to feel tears spilling from her eyes. "I could do it, Otto." Her voice had gone quiet. Everything she'd done, every awful choice she'd made, none of it would matter. She could kill the man at the center of it all. It wouldn't matter what happened to her after that.

She wondered if Steve would be proud.

A tear rolled down Otto's cheek as well. His voice came low and husky: "I know." They kept looking into each other's eyes, and Alice felt _devastated_. "But you won't."

The knowledge cascaded through her like a landslide. She realized that at some point she'd started clinging to Otto's hands so fiercely that he couldn't have let her go if he tried.

She closed her eyes. "I won't."

* * *

In the end, it went much the way Alice had imagined. Her performance went off without a hitch, save for the whole audience standing up at the start, turning to Hitler's box and raising their hands in a deafening _Heil_!

Alice couldn't even see into the box. The stage lights were too bright.

Afterwards she sat in her dressing room with Otto and her backup singers, and waited. It didn't take long.

She and Otto had agreed to do nothing other than watch, listen, and report back. But they'd still done their research. Alice had read _Mein Kampf _years ago and had followed Hitler closely in the news since then, but as the day wore on she dug into everything she could find written about him.

It became quickly apparent that Adolf Hitler was either terrified of women, or hated them. Maybe both. He'd made various comments about viewing politics as a woman who must not be degraded or made impure, but protected by strong men. When asked why he was still single, he said he saw his duty to the country as his duty to a spouse. He'd raved against prostitution and promiscuity in his youth. There'd been some rumors that he'd had a relationship with his much younger cousin before her suicide in 1931.

Alice had looked up from her reading that morning and turned to Otto. "I know what my approach is going to be."

He looked up. "I was thinking flirtation. Stroke his ego, make him feel powerful." He rolled his eyes. "Works on most men."

"Yes, a bit of that," she replied. "But…" she gestured to her research. "He's terrified of women he can't control. He doesn't want witty repartee, or strength. So I have to be _controllable_."

So when the Führer of the Third Reich walked into Alice's dressing room that evening she went for the quiet approach: she lowered her eyes, smiled shyly, let Otto and the opera house manager do most of the talking.

Hitler himself seemed ordinary in the flesh. He had sweat on his forehead, and tired lines under his eyes. His dark hair and mustache were combed neatly down, of course, and his dress uniform was impeccable, but he wasn't a still image in the newspaper. He was a living, breathing man.

When he took Alice's hand to shake it she felt his warm skin, and tried not to blink as a blinding camera flash went off. She let Hitler grip her fingers and shake firmly, his dark eyes on hers. _I could be killing you right now_, she thought, and smiled at him. She would probably have gone for a gun, she thought; easy to smuggle in the sleeve of her dress, easy to just pull out and _fire_. Or a knife – no chance of that misfiring.

His attendants were idle, smiling, their hands nowhere near their weapons. She imagined what they'd look like, spattered with blood and their faces the perfect picture of surprise.

But none of that happened.

Hitler released her hand. "_Frä__u__lein _Siren. I greatly enjoyed your performance. You have a gift." She was used to hearing his shouting, impassioned speeches, so his normal speaking tone came as a shock.

"Oh, thank you," she dipped her eyes, as if he was the sun and it was hard to look at him.

"You're from Austria, no?"

She smiled brilliantly. "Yes. The best things come out of Austria."

He smiled. Alice's skin crawled. "I couldn't agree more. Joseph tells me you are a great asset to our Propaganda Department."

"Thank you," she beamed. "I do what I can. To help." Her voice was a little higher, a little younger.

"A worthy cause, _Frä__u__lein. _Keep up the good work."

She smiled. "I will."

Then he'd turned to Otto, and Alice shook hands with Hitler's attendants.

All in all, it likely only lasted five minutes. He was a busy man, after all.

That night Alice and Otto went back to his dark office, sat on the couch together, and finished a bottle of whiskey between them. They didn't talk.

* * *

Excerpts from Adolf Hitler's Speech to the National Socialist Women's League (September 8 1934):

_"We do not consider it correct for the woman to interfere in the world of the man, in his main sphere. We consider it natural if these two worlds remain distinct. To the one belongs the strength of feeling, the strength of the soul. To the other belongs the strength of vision, of toughness, of decision, and of the willingness to act. In the one case this strength demands the willingness of the woman to risk her life to preserve this important cell [child] and to multiply it, and in the other case it demands from the man the readiness to safeguard life."_

_..._

_"What the man gives in courage on the battlefield, the woman gives in eternal self-sacrifice, in eternal pain and suffering."_

_..._

_"...we have gained the trust of millions of women as fanatical fellow-combatants, women who have fought for the common life in the service of the common task of preserving life, who in that combat did not set their sights on the rights which a Jewish intellectualism put before their eyes, but rather on the duties imposed by nature on all of us in common."_

* * *

Late February, 1943

Steve ducked his chin further into his scarf as a bitter winter wind howled down the street, threatening to knock him back a step. He was in a foul mood, over nothing in particular. He'd just gotten a letter from Alice, which normally made him walk on air for a few days, but even her dry, subtle humor couldn't quite pull him out of his funk. She'd only made one, passing allusion to her life in Europe – she'd mentioned she'd visited an art gallery in Munich that she thought he'd enjoy. She didn't explain why she was in Munich at all.

He and Alice had been in intermittent contact since she'd returned to Austria, through their secret line of communication. They spoke in ciphers. Steve's only knowledge about what she got up to came from her. It wasn't like he knew anyone else in Europe, and all the information in the papers was about troop movements and bombings. At least there hadn't been any bombings on Vienna.

He hadn't seen Bucky in weeks, since Bucky had been promoted to Sergeant and now had bigger responsibilities. Steve had tried and failed again to enlist, in Harlem, after visiting the area to watch Tom's baseball game – the kid had just made the school team.

Steve was stuck at his dead end job at a department store. He was technically there to draw sketches for their advertisements, but he usually wound up doing administration work in the office. It was fine, but he wanted to be _useful_. Every day felt like a waste.

Steve kicked a loose piece of cement and winced when it bruised his toe.

"Paper! Buy your newspaper here!"

He glanced up at the paperstand on the side of the pavement and skimmed the headlines. Christ, he was tired of hearing about the war, and he wasn't even in Europe. And yet he also couldn't get enough.

He saw the word _Austria_ and stopped in his tracks. His heartrate ticked up – surely there hadn't been any fighting there? The Allies were still battling it out in Italy.

He picked up the paper (_T__he New York Times_) and found the line that had caught his eye. It wasn't an article, just a headline:

_PAGE 32: AUSTRIAN SINGER AND FILM STAR BACKS NAZIS 'ALL THE WAY'._

_Huh. _He dug into his pocket for change and handed over 5 cents to the vendor. Steve hadn't written his letter in reply to Alice yet, maybe he could tell her about this film star and see what she thought. It might prompt her to open up a little more.

As he approached the trolley stop he flicked the paper open to page 32.

He stopped in his tracks, making the pedestrian behind him swear and veer around him.

Because for the first time since March of last year, he was looking at Alice.

And she was shaking Hitler's hand.

* * *

March 1943  
Berlin

The premiere of _Liebe und Sieg an der Front _[_Love and Victory on the Front_] was a star-studded affair. Alice had expected it to be somber, given the recent loss at the Battle of Stalingrad and the fact that the German Army had withdrawn from Tunisia, but it was almost the opposite: people wanted some excuse to celebrate, and a movie about a fictional victory seemed to be the perfect opportunity.

Alice arrived at the premiere theater in a gold satin dress that trailed a yard behind her as she walked. Kurt in his dress uniform stood by her side as her date, but even as she smiled up at him Alice considered asking Otto what he thought about her cutting things off with Kurt soon. His usefulness was drying up and he'd been getting more insistent about pushing their relationship forward.

What with the thousands of flashing camera bulbs, her stupidly long dress getting under her feet, and avoiding Kurt's wandering hands, she barely saw Otto outside the theater. He was shaking hands and making acquaintances, always working.

Before the film started they took a cast photo all together, and Alice's costar Karl Schneider wrapped his burly arm around her waist. She flashed a smile.

Finally they all filed into the theater and Alice relaxed in the darkness.

The movie, as she had predicted, was pretty terrible. Full of clichés and blatant propaganda, Alice winced at the sight of herself whirling across the screen with a bright white smile and elaborate makeup. But at the climax of the film (she winced at the on-screen kiss between Karl and herself, remembering his harsh grip) she looked around to find that many in the audience had been brought to tears.

She had to remind herself: _half the people here have a family member off fighting the war in a distant country. I might despise the reason for it, but these people still love their family. They still miss them._

It brought a strange, sad pallor over her and she barely paid attention to the rest of the movie.

She stole away as soon as she reasonably could once the credits rolled. Her makeup felt heavy and her skin crawled at being around so many people. She wanted her bed.

As she climbed into the car behind her driver, though, she asked him to take her to the post office first. Once they'd arrived she slipped out, glancing around to make sure there was no one around to stare at the gold-clad singer, and darted over to check her post box. Her heart leaped when she saw two envelopes addressed from the _Thomas Cook Office, Lisbon. _She tucked them in her purse and got back in the car. Her knee jumped nervously all the way home.

She said goodnight to her driver as he pulled up to her apartment, then gathered up her stupid dress train, ran upstairs, let herself inside, and didn't even get past the kitchen before she tore open the first letter. When she saw Steve's handwriting on the secondary envelope inside (her Vienna address – she had her mail rerouted), she beamed.

Alice kicked off her shoes inside her kitchen as she slit open the envelope and tipped it, and out fell… a newspaper clipping? She frowned and peered inside the envelope. There was no accompanying letter.

She set the envelope aside and began unfolding the newspaper clipping. She saw the upper margin: _New York Times. _The paper was rumpled and creased, as if someone had crushed it up and then smoothed it out again.

When she saw her own face in black and white her heart… disintegrated. Her fingers froze and she sucked in a shaky breath at the sensation in her chest: it was as if her heart had just shriveled up and fallen apart. Because she recognized the photo.

Fingers trembling, Alice finished unfolding the newspaper. The headline jumped out at her:

_NAZI SONGSTRESS: AUSTRIAN SINGER 'THE SIREN' BACKS NAZIS "ALL THE WAY"_

Alice's legs trembled. She was standing in her kitchen, there were no chairs near her, so she just kind of sank to the ground as she clutched the newspaper clipping.

With her knees pressed to the cold tile, her eyes darted over the photographs. The article took up a half page of the paper, so there were lots of them: the photo of her shaking hands with Hitler in her dressing room, the lights illuminating her smile. A photo from her TV interview in January. Another of her in the Nazi uniform she'd worn in Morocco, with a massive swastika behind her and her mouth wide open mid-song. Yet another of one of her performances, this one in her white dress. At the bottom there was a photograph of her and Kurt outside a Berlin restaurant, his arm looped around her shoulders and his lips pressing against the corner of her mouth. In that one, she looked shy and pleased.

Alice let out a low, horrified sound that echoed in her kitchen. She'd always played the part and done her job, but it wasn't until this very instant that she realized how _convincing _it looked. Her throat clogged up and the sound she'd been making died.

Alice's eyes burned and her fingers shook, but she forced herself to read the article. Given that it was American, it was of course disparagingr.

_The Siren soared to fame in the Reich at the beginning of the war, and has taken her career from success to success thanks to generous support from the propaganda-starved Nazi party and the lack of musical competition thanks to the migration of most decent performers out of Germany._

Further down, another line read: _The Siren flits from party to party, securing friendships in the highest places. Here she is pictured with her latest beau, Kurt Ohlendorf, nephew of late Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich._

_The Siren sings anthems of hope and success for rabid German audiences of civilians and soldiers, and hosts many military commanders at her famous parties._

Alice fumbled the paper. _They're talking about me._

There were quotes from her television interview and all the other radio interviews she'd done.

_"Germany will succeed in its ultimate dream, I believe that," says the Siren. Most singers in Europe nowadays choose not to express political opinions, even if they do perform in Germany, but the Siren holds no such qualms. "I back our leaders all the way. Our National Socialist future looks bright, and I can't wait to be a part of it!"_

When Alice reached the end, she dropped the article on the floor. It stared up at her accusingly, her own face and her own words reflecting back at her.

She planted one palm beside the article, almost flinching at the chill radiating from the tile floor. Then she pushed herself up, getting shakily to her feet. She turned to the bench and looked at the envelope again.

There was no other note. Nothing but her address in Steve's elegant hand.

A gasping sound echoed through the kitchen and Alice realized it was her own breathing, shuddering out of her chest.

He could have just stopped writing her. There's no way she could have known what stopped him. But _this _– she glanced back down at the article on the floor – was a demand for an explanation.

But Alice couldn't explain.

_How could I be so stupid to think that they'd never find out?_

She fumbled for the second envelope and tore it open with her teeth because her hands shook too badly.

It was from Tom. It wasn't even encrypted.

_Alice._

_Please, explain this. Steve and Bucky showed up here an hour ago with this newspaper article, and I've been staring at it since then and I can't stop seeing you._

_Did something happen? Are you being threatened? Is someone impersonating you?_

_I have no idea what's going on. Steve's not speaking anymore, and Bucky won't shut up, but they're scared, Alice. And angry. If this is you… why on earth are you doing this? I can't think of a reasonable explanation and I'm trying, believe me. You didn't mention any of this in your letters to us, and I know you haven't been telling us everything, but this?_

_When you came back, you said you maybe had a new job. That you were going to help people. I believed you, Alice._

_Please. You promised me that one day you would tell me all your secrets. Now's the time. Even if you can't tell me everything, just give me some kind of sign. I know there must be an explanation for this._

_Love,  
Tom._

Alice was weeping so hard by the time she finished the letter that she could barely read it. She shook from head to toe. Her teeth were chattering.

Because she knew what she had to do.

She couldn't explain. She couldn't tell them the truth, not even if she encrypted it with her strongest cipher. Not only would it put herself in danger but it would be a risk to Otto, to everyone in their network, the SSR, and everything they were trying to achieve.

So when she'd stopped shaking quite so violently she collected the letter, the envelopes, and the newspaper, and set them in her sink. She fetched her matchbook from the drawer. It took her four tries to light a match. She dropped it on the papers and watched the words blacken and curl. She watched her own face go up in flames.

With the smell of phosphorous and smoke in her nostrils, Alice gripped her kitchen counter and cried so hard that her sinuses blocked up and her throat hurt and her heart _shattered._ She hunched in on herself and shuddered.

_It's safer for them, _she told herself. _Safer if Tom doesn't have a sister. Safer if Bucky and Steve never knew Alice Moser at all._

She'd once written to Tom: _I want to make you proud_. She had to give up on that. She had to break her promise to tell him her secrets.

Bucky had said _Steve needs you here with him. _Alice had known, even then, that she wouldn't get to have that.

She'd told Steve _I love you. _Maybe she shouldn't have said it. Maybe it would be easier on him if she hadn't.

The paper blackened into ashes, and she rinsed it all down the drain. At some point she'd stopped crying. She just stood there, her face red and swollen and her breath coming in gasps, as if she'd been physically wounded.

After what could have been hours Alice drew in a deep breath that made her chest shudder. She walked across her apartment, still fully clothed from the premiere, and curled into bed.

She fell asleep, and dreamed of darkness.


	35. Chapter Twenty Six

** _~ You are life, ever young. But now you are gone and I live on, with nothing but melancholy song in your wake. ~_ **

* * *

Steve came down with the flu in spring. For once, it didn't infuriate him – for the past weeks he hadn't done much other than sleep, eat, and work, so cutting work out of the equation left him able to wallow. He lay in bed, and turned, and winced at the sunlight that streamed through the curtains.

He'd never been like this. Even after his mom died he'd wanted _action_, he'd handled all the arrangements and then thrown himself into his work, desperate to do something meaningful with his time. But losing his mom, that had been about grief. This was… something else.

He hadn't done much in the days after finding that newspaper article and sending it to Austria.

And as the days and weeks stretched on, he didn't get anything in return. The longest he'd gone without a letter from Alice before was two months.

But when it hit a month he knew, in his gut, that he would never hear from her again. He supposed he'd known as soon as he sent the article.

Tom still held out hope. Steve knew he checked the mailbox every day.

A few old residents of Brooklyn had read the paper and put things together. People came up to Steve demanding an explanation, but he didn't have one. He'd never seen these people so _furious_. Edith and Finn, happily married for over a year, had cornered Steve outside his apartment. Edith had had tears streaming down her face, and Finn couldn't seem to speak. Steve hadn't known what to say to them.

Others had gone to Tom, and he'd been harassed at school. The first time he'd stuck up for Alice. The second time, he said nothing.

Matthias's family grieved the girl they had once known, and then never spoke about her again.

Bucky had been loudest in his disbelief when he saw the article. He'd caught the train straight back from his camp, almost getting court martialed for leaving, so he could be with Steve when they brought the paper to Tom. For all that Bucky called Alice troublemaker and questioned her choice to go back to Europe, he didn't believe it.

Steve had never been so confused, so hurt. He still didn't _understand. _All he had was the deep pit of devastation and betrayal that had plunged through him the instant he saw the newspaper. As the weeks went on with only silence from Alice, it deepened.

Bucky and Steve had gotten in a fight about it. Neither of them had taken a side, really, they'd just been angry and scared and started yelling at each other. When their voices had failed and silence came over them, they hadn't solved anything. They were just as confused as before.

Steve wanted to disbelieve it all too. Tom still kept coming up with possible explanations: she was a prisoner, she'd been drugged. Steve wanted to believe in that. But there was _so much_, for so long. And he knew Alice – she never did anything she didn't want to do for very long.

And none of them could argue with those photos.

Steve knew it made him selfish, but he hated the one at the bottom of the article the most: the one of her with that Nazi officer, his hands on her back and his mouth on hers. Alice's small smile. It wasn't the clearest photo, but he couldn't stop staring at her face, trying to read her thoughts. But it was impossible. He didn't recognize the woman in those photographs.

There'd been one of her at a performance. Not the one where she was wearing the Nazi uniform, but one of her in an iridescent white dress with sweeping sleeves. Steve had stared at it for a good ten minutes and had thought _is that really Alice? _She barely looked like herself. Steve's image of her in his mind was of her curled up on the couch, her hair falling loose around her face and a tartan blanket pulled tight around her shoulders as she smiled at him. _This _woman, with her piercing gaze and untouchable strength… that was the Siren. Steve had never met the Siren.

He still loved her. He'd spent all these months wishing that he'd admitted it to her when she'd been in his house, but she'd left too fast.

How could he _still _love her, after this?

He kept looking back, going over old interactions, finding new meanings in things he hadn't understood at the time. She hadn't told him about Jilí going missing until months later. She hadn't told him a single thing about her life in Austria – _because she was hiding this._ She'd been shying away from conversations about the situation in Europe for years.

He read her old letters, in which she'd expressed doubt and then fear about the growing power of the Nazis. How could she have changed her mind so dramatically? Before the war, her uncle had kept her hostage in their house for weeks for refusing to record a song for the Propaganda Department. Surely that hadn't been a lie?

_How would I know? _He thought, turning in the stale sheets of his bed. Alice was the best liar he knew.

He felt stupid for trusting her so implicitly, and then guilty, and then angry… it was an endless churning cycle of emotions. He should have asked more questions. He should have tried harder to keep her from leaving.

Steve had always thought he'd known Alice better than anyone else.

_Maybe I never knew her at all._

* * *

Excerpt from '_The Captain Before the War'_ by Eileen Pitts, p. 33 (1982)

_In March of 1943, employment records reveal that Rogers lost yet another job, this one at a department store. There is no recorded reason for his employer having let him go, and it seems that after this point Rogers did not pick up steady work again (aside from some evidence of intermittent contract work). Indeed, it is hard to find evidence of Rogers at all from this point until his first contact with the SSR. From the lack of sources, w_ _e can only assume that his focus had turned entirely to the war, and how he could join it._

* * *

Otto had noticed that something had changed with Alice. He asked, but she never told him. She didn't tell anyone.

She'd never told Otto about her life back in Brooklyn. He knew she had a brother, but they hadn't spoken about him. She knew that if she admitted aloud what had happened then that would bring it all crashing back down on her: the acute, piercing shame, the abject horror, the sensation of her heart, though still beating, being frozen in her chest.

All Otto saw was that after the movie premiere Alice had become somehow colder, more focused.

Before, she'd had a warm, distant hope for the future: she'd see the war to its end and then get on one last ship across the Atlantic. She'd step off the dock at the New York Passenger Terminal and look up to see three faces waiting for her, smiling. Thinking of it now felt like actual, physical pain: a vice around her ribs, a cold spike through her gut. She'd been so naive.

Now, she had nothing but war.

The frozen loneliness reminded her of those months in Austria before she'd found her drive to help. She still had her purpose: performances every other night, clandestine meetings in abandoned rooms, meeting her handler in Switzerland every month. But she felt as if her identity were giving way to the Siren.

Otto did his best to help, but he couldn't crack her open like she could for him.

There was nothing waiting for her now, save for the distant end of the war. Her love was gone. Her family was gone. She had nothing left to lose but her life.

When she'd summoned some semblance of strength, Alice allowed herself to think about what she'd lost, which led to obsessive wondering thoughts. _When will Bucky ship out? Will I ever find out if he gets hurt, or killed?_

_What will this have done to Tom? He's only fifteen. What will this betrayal to do him?_

_What will it do to Steve?_

Selfishly: _will Steve fall in love again?_

She wanted to wish that he would, that he would find someone softer, more caring, who would take care of him and never leave him. But she still thought of his hands cradling her face and his dark blue eyes looking into hers, understanding her. She couldn't wish for anything else.

Alice tried to picture him sometimes. She didn't know what betrayal looked like on Steve's face. She never wanted to find out.

Months dragged on.

In April, Alice and Otto toured through Italy, France, and the Rhinelands. They'd initially planned to go to the Eastern Front, but there'd been more retreats. At the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, resistance rose up to combat the increasing deportations. The Waffen-SS retaliated with gunfire and grenades, and then began burning the ghetto one block after another. Alice's contacts there went silent, one by one. She and Otto arranged to have weapons smuggled into the ghetto for the resistance fighters, but it was nearly impossible.

Distantly, Alice noted that bombings in Germany were growing more frequent, and growing closer and closer to Berlin.

She broke things off with Kurt.

In North Africa, the Allies finally seized Tunisia at the beginning of May and a week later all remaining German and Italian troops in the continent surrendered.

Alice wanted to be glad for it but couldn't summon more than a grim satisfaction.

Days later, the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto crumbled under the ferocity of the Waffen-SS. Their dugouts were blown to pieces, their leaders slaughtered on the street. News out of the ghetto was sparse, but it was clear there was no hope. Everyone remaining was killed or shipped to concentration camps.

In her dressing room, Alice shakily tossed back a tumbler of whiskey after hearing the news. She'd seen the ghetto once, on a tour of Poland (the Siren hadn't been invited, but Al had slipped out to smuggle in food and to collect intelligence). Their starving, determined faces had reminded her so vividly of Steve.

They'd held out against the German Army for 28 days. France had fallen in six weeks.

Soon afterward, Himmler ordered the liquidation of all Jewish ghettos in Poland.

* * *

Message left by Mordechai Anielewicz ("Little Angel"), leader of the Jewish Fighting Organisation in Warsaw, on 23 April 1943:

_What happened exceeded our boldest dreams. The Germans fled twice from the ghetto. One of our companies held its position for forty minutes, while the other one lasted – upwards of six hours… I cannot describe to you the conditions in which the Jews are living. Only a handful will survive. All the rest will succumb, sooner or later. Their fate has been sealed. In almost all of the bunkers in which our friends are hiding one cannot even light a candle at night, for lack of air. Goodbye my friend. Perhaps we will see each other again. The main thing is this: My life's dream has become a reality. I have seen the Jewish defense of the ghetto in all its strength and glory._

* * *

June, 1943

Steve hated this part. The part when the army doctor looked down at his medical history and the look of shock went over their face.

He thought he might've had a shot with this doctor – he was the unruffled sort, grim and to the point. Shirtless and desperate, Steve watched his face closely.

But then the doctor looked up from under his heavy brows and said: "Sorry son."

"Look, just give me a chance," Steve said, leaning in.

"You'd be ineligible on your asthma alone," the doctor replied wryly.

Steve grit his teeth and glanced down. His drive to enlist had become more determined than ever; Bucky would be shipped any day now, and this war had gone on almost three years and Steve had done _nothing_. Alice was… Alice was gone, and he still couldn't go a day without thinking about her, but if he couldn't fix or understand that then he could still do this. He could fight to… to maybe make what she did right.

He couldn't get her printed words out of his head: _Germany will succeed in its ultimate dream, I believe that._

He had to fight against the spreading Nazi tide because it was right. And because he felt, strangely, as if what Alice had done was his fault: he hadn't seen it coming.

Steve looked up. "Is there anything you can do?"

The doctor met his eyes. "I'm doing it." He reached out, planted the stamp down. "I'm saving your life."

Steve didn't need to look at the form to know what it said.

He went to the movies to take his mind off another failure, but then the commercial before the film was – surprise – about the war. Steve grit his teeth at the sight of the waving swastika.

A guy started yelling when the commercial started advertising wartime roles.

Alice would've found a way to get the guy to stop; stuck gum in his hair, or poured his drink on his shoes, or quietly gone to get the theater manager.

Steve got in a fight.

There was no one there to pull him out of it this time. No Bucky, no Alice. _Good._

Steve's head collided with a trashcan.

He kept getting up though, trying to remember everything Bucky had taught him back in the day about boxing, but mostly Bucky's advice had been how to dodge. Steve tried to hit the guy but he blocked Steve's punch and then sent him back down to the garbage can. God, it smelt awful.

But then Bucky did show up. Steve slowly clambered to his feet, groaning under his breath, as Bucky sent the guy packing.

"Sometimes I think you like getting punched," came Bucky's exasperated voice.

But it wasn't the pain he liked. It was the fight before the pain, that feeling that he was doing _something_. He couldn't just sit by.

"I had him on the ropes," Steve winced. He straightened and pain bloomed behind his right eye. _Ow. _The guy had really rung his bell.

Bucky bent down and grabbed the enlistment papers before Steve could stuff them back in his jacket. He had a newspaper in his other hand. "How many times is this?" He opened the form. "Oh, you're from Paramus now?"

Steve didn't bother arguing about it, they'd had this debate countless times. So he let Bucky rib him about enlistment and New Jersey until he looked up and properly saw his friend.

Bucky stood straight-backed and well-pressed in his uniform. He never usually wore it when he was on weekend furlough, and… Bucky wasn't supposed to be scheduled for any furlough. Steve's stomach dropped.

"You get your orders?"

Bucky glanced down, sober for a moment. Steve saw him summoning his cheer a moment before he looked up again. "The 107th. Sergeant James Barnes, shipping out for England first thing tomorrow."

Steve stared numbly at the insignia on Bucky's chest. His gaze dropped and he found himself looking at the trash-covered pavement of the alleyway. "I should be going."

When he looked up he caught a flash of sorrow in Bucky's eyes. But then a smile crossed his face and he hauled Steve into a one-armed hug like he had done since they were kids. "Come on." They wheeled and walked down the alleyway towards the light and bustle of the street beyond. "It's my last night! Gotta get you cleaned up."

Steve focused on putting one foot in front of the other. His vision wasn't blurry, so the knock to his head mustn't have been too bad. "Why, where're we going?" Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Bucky toss his enlistment form away.

It almost made him smile. He was used to this: every time Bucky returned from training he tried his best to pull Steve out of his funk, distracting him with movies and dates and bars. But this time it was different. This time was the _last time. _His heart thudded.

Bucky handed him the newspaper. "The future."

Bucky took Steve back to his place, helped him wash away the blood and then waited in the living room as Steve got dressed for this World Exposition thing. He'd seen it in the papers and heard about it on the radio, of course. Hadn't planned on going.

When Steve walked out, dressed and combed, Bucky was sitting in the armchair, looking at the empty couch. From the far off, turbulent look in his eye, Steve knew who he was picturing there.

He must've made a noise because Bucky blinked and looked over, smiling at seeing Steve dressed up. But then he caught the look in Steve's eye and his face fell again.

"Have…" his eyes darted away. "Have you heard anything?"

Steve stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down. "No." It'd been four months now since the article, four months of silence. Even Tom couldn't pretend that Alice's letter was just 'delayed in the post' any longer. "I mean, I've been reading the papers, trying to keep track of her… her career, but there's not a lot on this side of the pond."

Bucky nodded slowly, eyes unfocused. He paused. He started shaking his head.

The atmosphere in the room felt stifling: hurt, so much leftover confusion. Steve sometimes thought he could let it go if he just _understood_. If Alice wrote back, explaining that… that… he didn't even know what. But the not knowing left the wound open and raw.

There was nothing left to say. Steve and Bucky had talked it over so many times, asked all the same questions… there was no point.

So Bucky just slid his palms across his trousers and stood up. "Come on." He flashed a small smile. "Let's go."

* * *

Flushing Meadows was nearly unrecognizable. Steve stared as they got off the train: spotlights cut through the night sky which erupted with fireworks, and the park itself was all lit up like the Rockefeller Christmas tree, as if they weren't in the middle of a war. People thronged the park, excitedly chattering. A huge, winding monorail soared over it all, weaving around the giant metal globe in the middle of the park.

As they walked in Bucky tried to convince Steve to date around more, and Steve listened with his hands on his pockets, his head ducked, and a slight smile on his face. Ever since… ever since four months ago, Bucky had been so desperate to make everything okay. He'd been trying to set up Steve's life in New York; he'd talked to his neighbors to make sure they checked up on him, called every other night when he was sick, and in the gaping, painful absence of Alice had tried to keep him happy.

Steve wondered if Bucky had ever stopped to make sure that _he _was doing okay, instead of fussing over Steve. But he got it. Bucky looked out for other people: he always had.

Then Bucky revealed the two young women waving excitedly across the square, and Steve shot him an exasperated glance. His friend wasn't looking.

When Alice left the last time, Bucky hadn't tried to set Steve up at all. But then they'd found that article and it all fell apart, and Bucky had gone back to relentlessly tricking Steve onto dates, all the way from a military encampment. At first Steve had been so sick with guilt and anger that he'd stood the poor girl up, but after that he figured it was best to just go along with Bucky. If anything it got him out of the house, and made Bucky worry less.

He was still terrible with women though, and his heartbreak over Alice didn't make things any better.

He sighed as he eyed the women. "What'd you tell her about me?"

Bucky grinned at him. "Only the good stuff."

Steve swept his fringe back and straightened his shoulders.

"Connie!" Bucky called as they approached the young women. The one on the right, a dark haired girl who positively lit up at the sight of Bucky, darted forward to press a kiss against his cheek. Bucky beamed at her and then gestured to Steve. "Girls, this is Steve. Steve, _this_" – he gestured to the other young woman – "is Bonnie."

She was pretty. She was _blonde. _She was looking at him, and deflating.

Steve managed to give Bonnie a half-passable greeting, but she barely heard him because Bucky introduced them all effusively and then whisked them toward the Modern Marvels pavilion. He was always like this, the life of the party, but it felt pronounced tonight. _He wants to have fun before he leaves_, Steve realized. He wished he could shake off his grim melancholy.

Steve focused on the exhibits as they strode in, trying to distract himself from darker thoughts. He had to admit it was all pretty impressive: massive television, anti-artillery suits, model ships for going up to space. A mix of real and fantasy, a vision of what the future could be. The stuff Bucky loved.

By the time Steve realized he was drifting behind the three of them it was too late to really do anything about it. He forked over a few cents for a bag of peanuts.

Bonnie seemed to be having a good time, he thought, except for when she was reminded she was on a date with him. He didn't mind.

They walked over to the Stark show, and Bucky was trying to act cool but Steve knew he had a minor obsession with the man.

During the show as the red sedan floated off the ground, Steve caught himself thinking _Alice would love this_, and felt his stomach drop out. So he looked away, and spotted the enlistment poster across the multitude of milling people.

_What the hell._

* * *

Bucky caught him at the enlistment center.

The argument went much the way it usually did, but there was an undercurrent of urgency to Bucky's voice now.

"They'll catch you," he argued, his dark eyes frustrated, "worse, they'll actually _take _you."

Steve met his eyes for a second more before he glanced down. "Look, I know you don't think I can do this but-"

"This isn't a back alley, Steve, it's _war-_"

Steve's eyes sparked. "I know it's a war-"

"Why are you so keen to fight? There's so many important jobs-"

"What d'you want me to do, collect scrap metal?"

Bucky rounded on him. "_Yes_, you-"

"I'm not going to sit in a factory Bucky, _Bucky_," Steve breathed out his frustration, "come on, there are men laying down their lives." Bucky went still. "I've got no right to do any less than them. That's what you don't understand." A flash of fear went through Bucky's eyes, and Steve got it – Bucky had spent their whole childhood trying to keep Steve out of fights and here he was, trying to jump into the biggest one of all. "This isn't about me."

"Right," Bucky said in a lower voice. He met Steve's eyes. "Because you've got nothin' to prove." He paused, letting that sink in. "And this has nothing to do with-"

"Don't," Steve said, because he could see from the hurt-angry-sad look in Bucky's eyes what he was going to say. _Alice. _Because the idea of enlisting, getting across that ocean to be even a little bit closer, though still out of reach…

They stared at each other, chins jutted out and their eyes hard.

The girls called out to Bucky and they both glanced away – Bucky to the girls and Steve down at the floor, trying to let go of his frustration at his friend. It hadn't sunk in yet that Bucky was _leaving._

When they looked at each other again, the annoyance had melted from Bucky's face.

He sighed. "Don't do anything stupid until I get back."

The corner of Steve's mouth ticked up. "How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you."

Bucky's lip quirked, he shook his head, and then he strode back to throw his arms around Steve. "You're a punk."

"Jerk," Steve muttered as he clapped Bucky on the back. He pretended that this wasn't goodbye. "Be careful."

Bucky just smiled, his eyes twinkling as he backed away.

"Don't win the war 'til I get there!" Steve called.

He expected a joke but Bucky just turned to give him a sharp salute. Steve sighed.

He'd had two Bucky Barneses warring in his head all day: the kid who'd been pulling him out of fights since junior high, and this straight-shouldered soldier. In that moment he realized they were one and the same.

Bucky turned and jogged down the steps.

Steve thought, for a moment: _he's outgrown me_.

But then the thought faded, and he just thought about how much he was going to miss him.

He wondered if he'd see either of his best friends ever again.

Then: _I shouldn't want to see Alice again._

He turned and headed in.

* * *

The small blonde boy strode into the enlistment center, and Doctor Erskine watched him go.

_Hm._

* * *

Correspondence from Smithsonian Museum Archivist Peter Bint to researcher Harley Globe (10 March 2013)

_Dear Harley,_

_Thank you for your efforts thus far, but I must ask that you look a bit harder. Some people might be satisfied saying that Captain Rogers only attempted to enlist three times before his success with the SSR, but you must trust my instincts that there must have been more attempts - and thus, more records. We'll need those records for the pre-Rebirth segment of the exhibition. We need all the artefacts we can get, since it's pretty clear that Rogers won't be making things easy for us by just telling us._

_Let me know how you get on._

_Peter._

* * *

On a rooftop in Paris, Alice held a rucksack to her chest as she lay above the gutter and tried to keep her ragged breaths quiet. The Gestapo unit tramped past below, their boots loud on the cobblestones.

Alice realized she could see the stars.

She had two blocks to go before she got to the warehouse, where there should be a French Resistance contact waiting for her, ready to collect the documents she'd copied and stolen at the Vichy France government building yesterday.

In May the major resistance leaders had formed a committee, the _Conseil National de la Résistance_ [_National Council of the Resistance_] or CNR, to coordinate their efforts. This made Alice's and Otto's jobs a lot easier, since they didn't have to worry about choosing the right recipient anymore. The resistance would take the most important stuff back to the council, and they would decide what should be done about it.

The Gestapo footsteps receded into the darkness. Alice carefully rolled to her feet, mindful of the rucksack full of documents she clutched to her chest, and took a breath. She'd never traveled via rooftop before. It was _terrifying. _And slippery. But Peggy had trained her well.

She backed up, then darted forward and took a running leap into the darkness.

* * *

"So. You want to go overseas. Kill some Nazis."

This strange doctor who'd walked into the medical room talking about _killing Nazis _was making Steve's palms sweat. He had a knowing look about him.

They each introduced themselves, and Doctor Erskine moved to the end of the medical bed. That black-and-white _IT IS ILLEGAL TO FALSIFY YOUR ENLISTMENT FORM _sign was right behind his head.

"Where are you from?" Steve asked, to divert attention. The doctor's accent was similar to Alice's and her mom's, but not quite the same.

"Queens," the doctor replied. "73rd street and Utopia Parkway." He adjusted his glasses and looked down at the folders he'd brought in. "Before that, Germany," he added lightly. "This troubles you?"

Steve shook his head. "No."

And then – _oh god, _he had all of Steve's former enlistment forms, and Steve panicked and tried to talk his way out of it, but the doctor remained unruffled.

"Oh, it's not the exams I'm interested in. It's the five tries." Steve had actually tried a few more times than _five_, but he felt like now wasn't the time to be splitting hairs.

Doctor Erskine closed the folder and moved across the room to face Steve directly. "But you didn't answer my question. Do you want to kill Nazis?"

Steve glanced away, to the sign, and then back. "Is this a test?"

"Yes."

Steve thought of the photograph in that newspaper, of Alice in that _uniform_ with the massive swastika behind her. He thought of everything else he'd heard from Europe. The families dragged out of their houses and shot by the side of ditches. The disappearances. Jilí and Franz.

He took a breath. "I don't want to kill anyone. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from."

Doctor Erskine nodded, a ghost of a smile playing across his face. He glanced down at the folder in his hands. "Well. There are already so many big men fighting this war. Maybe what we need now is a little guy, huh?"

Steve's brows furrowed.

Erskine turned. "I can offer you a chance. Only a chance." He flung open the screen and moved to the nurse's desk.

"I'll take it!" Steve exclaimed as he followed him out.

"Good." Erskine flicked open Steve's file. "So where is the little guy from?" He looked over and eyed Steve through his glasses. "_Actually_."

Steve allowed some of his hesitation to ease, and smiled. "Brooklyn."

Erskine returned the smile. "Ah. I have friends from there." He planted a stamp on Steve's file, flicked it shut and then handed it over. "Congratulations, soldier."

Steve opened the file again.

_1A._

He drew in a massive breath and looked up to thank the doctor. But he was already gone.

* * *

Excerpt from Doctor Abraham Erskine's Project: Rebirth Notes (June 14th, 1943) [NOTE: CLASSIFIED]. Archived by Catherine Laurey, SHIELD Archivist

_I'd almost given up. Stark too, though he's busied himself with his Expo to get over his worries about the Project. Carter has her work cut out for her trying to drag him away from it. He invited me today, and I ended up at the recruitment center out of pure desperation. Since then, I've been trying not to get my hopes up - I could be so desperate for the right candidate that I've misjudged the young man I met, or it may be he has yet unknown qualities which will make him unsuitable. But I have never felt so sure about someone than about him, aside from maybe_ [Archivist note: words redacted].

_The coming days may tell, but I think this may be it._

* * *

The next day, Bucky strode along the deck of the troopship he'd boarded before dawn, his hands in his uniform pockets and his face turned up to the oncoming breeze.

He made it to the prow of the ship which reared up and then thundered down as it crested each wave. Fine seaspray washed over the lip of the prow. Bucky leaned his elbows against the rigid metal and eyed the shifting seas. He'd never been so far from Brooklyn.

The ship was probably more raucous than their commanders would like it, but everyone on board was a green soldier who knew they were about to head into the fires of war. Bucky had been well trained this last year, but he didn't know what waited for them. He'd heard they'd probably be sent into Italy.

Unbidden, he recalled Alice's letter from after Pearl Harbor. He remembered each line so clearly even over a year later, as if her advice had been seared into him.

_Keep your head down. _ _Literally and metaphorically. If you're captured, don't fight them or mouth off. They won't hesitate to kill you. Train your hardest so you have the skills you need once you get here._

Bucky ran a hand over the front of his uniform.

_If you end up on the front, wherever they send you… tell everyone you can to get out. I mean the people who live there. Staying where they are is not sustainable, especially if they're Jewish. Tell them to get as far as they can._

_Learn German. _ _If you don't remember what you learned from me, pick up a phrasebook. Learning how to say 'don't shoot' may save your life._

"_Nicht schießen_," Bucky murmured under his breath, then dropped his head as he leaned against the prow of the ship. Sea salt blew into his face.

He couldn't reconcile that letter with what he'd learned about Alice. She'd been so frightened for them…

It was possible, he realized, that Alice was a Nazi and that she still cared about him, Steve, and Tom. Just the idea of it turned his stomach.

He looked up to where the sky met the sea.

_Wherever you are, Alice_, he thought, _I hope you're safe._

With another sigh he turned and headed below deck to get his duty roster.

* * *

In the French countryside near the border to Belgium, Alice performed for German troops and collected rumors. The most interesting rumor of all was about HYDRA – some couriers claimed that they'd seen HYDRA soldiers near the border. And that they had strange new weapons.

She made a mental note to bring it up when she next spoke to their SSR handler in Switzerland.

* * *

Training, Steve thought, was a lot like school. The bullies, the assignments, the taskmaster teachers. The eyes that took in Steve's size and then glazed over with disappointment. No Alice or Bucky, though.

And Camp Lehigh was a far sight different from Brooklyn Senior High: uniformed soldiers marched and jogged across the dry grass from barracks to barracks, and the air rumbled with car engines and live fire tests. Steve had stared around at it all when he arrived. He'd been hoping for this for so long, it was almost surreal to actually be here.

He'd brought all his old books with him: tactics and weapons, biographies, accounts of the Great War. He also hoarded all the study materials they gave out to the new recruits so he could read up on army regulations and weapons manuals into the small hours of the morning. He didn't want to be caught out.

Bucky had told Steve all about his training, but it still took him by surprise. Each morning began with a hard slog around the barracks, made all the harder by his shortness of breath and weak limbs, followed by a long day of physical and mental tests. More physical than mental, unfortunately.

Alice had once said, not unkindly, that Steve had determination the size of the Empire State building squeezed into a newspaper stand. He'd never felt it so acutely as now. He wanted so _desperately _to succeed: in the pushups, the rope climb, the army crawl. But his body kept letting him down.

Gilmore Hodge was a goddamn asshole, too.

Colonel Phillips was brusque and blunt about his opinions, and generally steered clear of Steve. Steve liked Agent Carter: she took no bullshit and she had a great right hook. Doctor Erskine hovered around the edges of their training, watching but never speaking.

Despite his abysmal physical test scores, Steve still had his brains. He already knew Morse Code and all the basic ciphers, much to Agent Carter's surprise when she began teaching them all, and he knew his way around a gun thanks to Father Rickard.

It was hard to get enough oxygen to his brain to make it function most days, but it worked in his favor on the day when he stood with his hands on his knees, panting, watching Hodge and all the other recruits fighting to climb the flagpole at the halfway mark of their run. Steve caught his breath and looked up at the fluttering brown _Camp Lehigh_ flag. Then he looked down.

Two minutes later, Steve handed the flag to the wide-eyed commander and climbed into the car behind Agent Carter and the driver. Carter smiled at him.

It was a nice smile, but Steve wasn't fooled. Carter was the biggest taskmaster of them all; all their commanders made them work hard but she made it _real. _He'd seen how she needled the recruits, making them irritated, and then watched closely for how they would react. It was a smart way to test character. Steve was mostly too tired to get irritated.

So a few days later, Steve wasn't surprised when he saw Agent Carter running for the grenade bouncing across the training ground as well. But for once in his life, Steve got there first. He curled up around the metal sphere, too full of adrenaline to be scared, and shouted for everyone to get away. He screwed his face up and his muscles shook. He thought about all the Great War books he'd read, and the black-and-white photographs of grenade wounds.

But then… nothing happened. He heard someone say "it's a dummy grenade," and Steve looked up to see everyone staring at him. Agent Carter's eyes gleamed. Doctor Erskine looked grimly satisfied, and Colonel Phillips practically glared at him.

"Is this a test?" he breathed.

He hoped Bucky never found about this. Bucky would _kill _him. He thought that Alice probably would too. He cast away the thought.

He looked back over to see Erskine smiling at him.

* * *

When he was called to the command center that afternoon into an office with Colonel Phillips, Agent Carter, and Doctor Erskine, he thought his luck was up. He stood just inside the door with his fists balled up by his sides and his face rigid. He couldn't go back to Brooklyn after this. He had dog tags, he'd been training for war, he was so _close. _He'd get a ticket over to Europe somehow, maybe try enlisting in Britain –

"You've been selected for Project Rebirth, Private Rogers," said Colonel Phillips in a distinctly reluctant tone.

Steve stared at them.

Phillips looked to Carter, who looked to Erskine, who started explaining what Project Rebirth was. Steve had heard bits, of course, and the other recruits had been full of guesses about what they were competing for, but he hadn't quite realized the extent of it: an irreversible, dangerous procedure that had never been tested before. And they'd picked _him._

"We need to know, Private Rogers," said Agent Carter with a firm gaze. "Are you ready to do this?"

The three of them looked at him expectantly.

Steve recalled, abruptly, Alice's letter to him before the war started.

_If _ _it does come to war, I know I can't ask you not to enlist. So I'll ask you now to take one goddamn minute and _ _ think. _ _ Think about what you're throwing yourself into, think about the consequences. Think about what I'd say. Then decide. I think that's the most I'll get you to agree to, so I'll leave it there._

_I'll offer you the same promise._

Alice wasn't the person he'd thought she was, and she hadn't kept up her end of the deal, but he owed it to the memory of the friend he once had to think this through.

He bowed his head.

It didn't take him long to look up once more with a lifted chin. "Yes," he told them. "I'm ready."

They didn't seem to need anything else. They told him to check into medical for some 'initial readings' and when he returned to the recruit barracks, everyone else was gone.

* * *

Excerpt from article 'Unpacking Rebirth: How Covert Science Changed the War' by Katya Baxter (2000)

_Researchers of all backgrounds have found themselves frustrated when looking into the specifics of Project Rebirth. The science was not recorded in a complete way (thanks to Doctor Abraham Erskine's extreme caution) and even the decision making throughout the process seems esoteric. Why pair the refugee Jewish scientist with the most famous popular scientist of the time? Why give said refugee scientist so much freedom over the work? And the biggest question: why Steve Rogers?_

_Test subjects today are chosen based on general health, fitness, capability, and receptiveness to the scientific process. The most surface-level research into Steve Rogers will tell you that he did not fit many of those categories._

_The answer, however frustrating to consequent generations of scientists and historians, seems to be simple: trust. Erskine, being the only scientist at that time fully capable of creating a 'super soldier serum' had ultimate control over the project, and given the hardship and desperation of the war he was allowed to maintain this control. Crucially, Erskine has been remembered for his ethics and empathy: beyond scientific discovery, the doctor felt passionately about using his developments for the betterment of humanity, or what he considered so._

_And Erskine came to trust Steve Rogers. As a refugee from the privations of the war in Europe and a victim of HYDRA leader Johann Schmidt's power delusions, Doctor Erskine trusted that Steve Rogers was the best subject for Project Rebirth. We cannot fully understand the reasoning, as it was never recorded, and no one now can ask Erskine. We can only examine the outcomes of choosing of Steve Rogers, and conclude that whatever the reasoning, Doctor Erskine made the right choice._

* * *

That night, Erskine came to the barracks. Steve was just staring at his strategy book, not really reading it, surrounded by empty beds and the sound of chirping crickets outside. Someone in another barracks was listening to sad songs on the radio. The doctor was a welcome distraction.

"Can't sleep?" Erskine asked. He set down two glasses on the box by Steve's bed.

"Got the jitters, I guess."

Erskine chuckled. "Me too."

Steve set down his book. "Can I ask you a question?" He'd been mulling it over all evening.

Erskine sat on the bed across from him, uncorking the bottle he'd brought in. "Just one?"

"Why me?"

Erskine took a moment to reply. "I suppose that is the only question that matters." He eyed the bottle, which he'd set on his knee. Steve read the label. _German_, he realized.

"This is from Augsburg, my city." He glanced up at Steve with a measured look. Steve spotted a glint of sadness hiding behind his eyes. "So many people forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own."

_I didn't forget, _Steve wanted to say. He wanted to tell Erskine about it all: how he'd followed the path of their invasions in the news, terrified and unable to do anything to help as troops moved across borders. But he realized he _had_ forgotten: he'd forgotten that the Nazis were more than an army, they were an idea. An infectious idea. He hadn't paid enough attention to see that idea take hold in Alice.

He met Erskine's eyes, his shoulders hunched.

"You know after the last war, they… my people struggled, they felt weak, they felt… small. And then Hitler comes along with the marching and the big show and the flags, and…"

Steve's eyes dropped. _Is that what she needed? To feel strong?_

Erskine continued, explaining how Hitler had sought out Erskine for his scientific work, how Erskine had refused. How the head of this _HYDRA _division had been sent to force Erskine into service, and how it had all gone wrong.

"This is why you were chosen," Erskine said in a soft voice. "Because a strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the _value _of strength… and knows compassion."

His dark eyes were warm, empathetic.

"Thanks," Steve murmured. "I think." It was nice to be seen by someone other than Bucky and…

He cut the thought off.

Erskine gestured to the glasses, and Steve held them out so he could pour the clear liquid. "Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing." He set down the bottle. "That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier." He leaned forward and pointed right at Steve. "A _good man._"

Steve felt a smile curling his mouth. He shifted a little, then raised his glass. "To the little guys." Erskine reached out to clink his glass, smiling, and Steve added: "_Prost._" [_Cheers_]

Erskine's look of soft resolution quirked into curiosity. "You know German?"

Steve's heart sank. "Some."

"Where did you learn?"

"Uh… through an old friend."

"Ah," said Erskine, tactful enough to see pain and steer away. They both brought their glasses to their lips, and Steve's nose wrinkled at the strong smell – "No no, wait!" Erskine exclaimed, reaching out. He grabbed the glass out of Steve's hand. "What are you doing, you have procedure tomorrow! No fluids!"

Steve sighed. He could've used some liquid courage. "Alright. We'll drink it after."

"No, I don't have procedure tomorrow," Erskine shot back, his brow furrowed as he poured Steve's glass into his. "Drink it after? I drink it now." He brought the glass to his mouth and tipped it back in one go.

Steve couldn't help but smile.

* * *

The night before her return to Berlin Alice slept in the loft of a French barn, safe in the knowledge that her backup singer Anna was sleeping in her five star hotel room in a blonde wig to make it appear that Alice had stayed the night there. She'd spent a hard afternoon and evening training some local _résistance _members in explosives.

She lay on an awfully scratchy bed of hay, hoping the farmer the barn belonged to didn't check his loft in the morning, and her mind fell quiet. She didn't often sit alone with her thoughts these days. A moment later she remembered why: because her thoughts always turned in one direction.

Alice rolled over, huffing, and forced the thought of a slender, blond-haired young man with a shy smile out of her head.

* * *

In the car on the way to the Project Rebirth headquarters, Steve looked out of the window to distract himself from his coiling nerves. But then his brow furrowed as he began to recognize the streets and buildings sliding past.

He pointed out his memories of these places to Agent Carter (realizing a moment too late that most of his memories ended with him getting beat up), and she commiserated with him by explaining that she hadn't had much luck getting recognized by her colleagues in the Army, and then Steve started fumbling his words. Had he really just called her a _beautiful dame? _Bucky was a terrible influence on him.

Carter turned calm, incisive eyes on him, and with a hint of a smile said: "You have no idea how to talk to a woman, do you?"

Steve huffed a laugh and looked away. "I think this is the longest conversation I've ever had with one." He purposefully skirted around the idea of Alice. She'd barely been a woman before she'd left with her uncle, and those strange few weeks when she'd come back felt like a dream. And now… "Women aren't exactly lining up to dance with a guy they might step on." He couldn't help the melancholy that slipped into his voice.

"You must have danced," Carter said softly.

A memory: sitting with Alice at the side of the ballroom as Louis Armstrong crooned into a microphone. Bucky's voice: _Thought this was a ballroom, not a lounge. Come and dance, you humbugs. _They'd obeyed, but they hadn't danced _together._ Save for those few moments where she had gripped his elbow to guide him.

"No," he murmured, picking at his fingers, "asking a woman to dance always seemed so terrifying." He looked up. "And the past few years, it just… didn't seem to matter that much." His brow furrowed. "Figured I'd wait."

"For what?"

"The right partner." He looked out the window at the familiar streets sliding by, with a heavy weight in his gut.

* * *

_I've never met a man so frightfully earnest_, Peggy thought as she eyed Rogers' profile. He reminded her of some of the veterans she'd met, rather than a green recruit. She agreed with Erskine's assessment. He'd be a fine candidate.

Her musings were interrupted as the black sedan pulled up in front of the _Brooklyn Antiques _store. Steve looked confused, and expressed his confusion, but Peggy just silently led him in. She exchanged the brief code with Doris, the door guard, and guided Rogers through the curtain to the back room, before stopping to wait in front of the bookshelf. Rogers remained quiet, watching.

Peggy remembered Alice's wry voice. _Where's the hidden door?_

A smile flickered at her lips, and a moment later the bookshelf swung open. She strode forward, leading Steve Rogers through the hidden headquarters toward the room where, one way or another, his life was going to be changed forever.

* * *

The New York Examiner headline: '_NAZIS IN NEW YORK: MYSTERY MAN SAVES CHILD' _(June 23rd, 1943). Featured photograph: a man holding a detached 'Lucky Star Cab Company' taxicab door with bulletholes in it.

* * *

Chest heaving, Steve stood by the docks at the Brooklyn shipyard and looked down at his hands.

It felt like days had passed, but it had probably only been about an hour since Carter had brought Steve to that antiques store. All at once, the sensations hit him and overwhelmed him.

His body still ached from the residual pain from Stark and Erskine's machine. He'd never felt anything like it before: white, searing light, the sensation like lightning coursing through his veins, his very cells burning and shifting. His lungs burning from screaming.

The desperate look in Erskine's eyes as he'd touched a finger to Steve's chest a moment before he slipped away.

Carter standing in front of that oncoming car.

The expression on the dark haired agent's face: a flash of pure hatred.

Pushing himself as he raced barefoot through the streets of Brooklyn, only for his eyes to widen as he realized he hadn't hit his limit yet. He just went _faster._

The car crash, then that heart-pounding duck-and-cover through the shipyards with the little boy struggling in the agent's arms.

Dragging the guy out of the depths of the ocean, and then he'd just… killed himself. Like it was easy.

_Cut off one head, two more shall take its place. Hail HYDRA._

Steve's eyes flickered down to the agent's body. His eyes were bloodshot and he had foam flecked around his still mouth. Shipyard workers stared from the far end of the dock.

Steve looked back at his own hands. They were _big. _He'd always had narrow, nimble fingers, but these hands dwarfed what they'd once been. His gaze traveled up strong arms, corded with muscle and still dripping with seawater, to the bulk of his chest. The ground was much farther away than it used to be.

It was more than that, though. He'd just sprinted flat out for at least a mile, been in a car crash and a gunfight and punched a hole in a submarine, and… his breath came easy. He was exerted, but he used to breathe like this after climbing up a flight of stairs. The world around him was sharp, more colorful somehow, and Steve realized that up until this moment there'd been whole spectrums of light that his eyes hadn't been able to make out before.

The small, asthmatic boy that everyone he loved had known was gone. The illnesses and scars that his mom had seen him through were gone. This new, tall Steve was a Steve that Bucky had never seen. A Steve that Alice would never know.

The thought boggled his mind, but Steve didn't regret it. He felt _strong._

He stood on his own two feet, his back held straight, and realized finally what Erskine had meant when he'd said _a weak man knows the value of strength._

Steve still hadn't gotten a look at himself in the mirror. He'd been able to tell from the reactions of everyone back at the SSR facility that he'd undergone an enormous transformation, but all he had for now was the feeling of how much had changed. He wondered if he'd recognize himself in the mirror.

The piercing sirens of approaching police cars made Steve's head jerk up, and he looked around to see shipyard workers and civilians alike staring at him and the dead HYDRA agent.

Steve let out a breath. _The hell do I do now?_


	36. Chapter Twenty Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated the [Siren playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmyEFm4fuH4p0qf3_NdQOQAiG9x82GOVH), added some opera pieces that Alice performs in the story and some modern songs that have served as inspiration for writing. Check it out, let me know what you think!

June 1943

Alice returned to Berlin just as a new rumor about HYDRA began to spread: some said that there were signs the cult-like science division had gone rogue.

Nothing concrete, nothing official. The Nazi leadership kept any information in-house but it was clear they were in a tizzy about something. Alice heard mention of a few missing Nazi officers. There was no word of any planned reprisals, though.

It took her a few days, but Alice eventually got in contact with the newly-widowed wife of a moderately famous painter. The woman was distraught, barely verbal, and her doctors were threatening to institutionalize her. Alice put in a good word to prevent that. The woman eventually opened up: her husband had traveled out of Berlin for a commission, and had returned with talk about an awful place up in bitterly-cold mountains, with a monster who demanded a portrait. He'd spoken of a _serum._

Then a few days ago, he just hadn't woken up. His wife hissed the word _poison_, which made her doctor roll his eyes, but Alice knew of at least three poisons that mimicked the symptoms of a heart attack or a stroke with no lasting trace.

The woman couldn't tell Alice much more than that, but it was certainly interesting. She passed the information onto Otto and they agreed to tell it to their handler on their next visit to Switzerland. Alice made sure the artist's wife had her phone number.

* * *

Excerpt from article "_The Forgotten Victims of HYDRA: A Study". _by Yuri Arynthe, 2000

_... also evidence to suggest that the tyrannical Schmidt had a portrait commissioned of himself and later had the painter, Wilhelm Meyer, assassinated _ _(the portrait itself was seized by the SSR following their raid of the main base in 1945, but has not made its way into the public eye since then)_ _. It's unclear whether Meyer witnessed anything incriminating, though as we have shown, Schmidt was known to assassinate those who came close to him out of fits of paranoia and power fantasy, as in the case of..._

* * *

On a train bound south out of New York, Steve set his chin on his hand and gazed out the window.

It had been about two weeks since he had apprehended the HYDRA spy. Two weeks since the SSR left for Europe (without him), two weeks since he'd signed the USO contract Senator Brandt brought to him, two weeks of learning to live in this strange new body and this strange new world. He'd become famous overnight: not as Steve Rogers, but as _Captain America._ The name had made his nose wrinkle when he first heard it. If only he'd known then all of what Senator Brandt's proposal involved.

It had been a whirlwind since he'd joined the USO. Steve had been whisked off to costume fittings and screen tests, had performance scripts thrust upon him only for the script to be revised hours later, and had met up with the thirty-strong band of chorus girls for rehearsals (they were called the Star Spangled Singers, though they laughed behind their hands at the name).

The women were nice enough. Originally they'd been _very _touchy – more than Steve had ever been used to, in his old body – but as rehearsals wore on they just got more and more frustrated with his stumbling and forgotten cues.

The first performance in New York had been a disaster. It'd been packed full, thanks to Steve's newfound fame in the papers, but Steve had barely made it through with the help of his lines pasted to the back of his cardboard shield. The show manager was a grease-haired man who dangled the possibility of a military command in front of him. Steve knew the guy was just manipulating him, but it helped to think that this was going somewhere. The lights on stage nearly blinded him, and halfway through he imagined what the people who knew him would think if they saw him doing this (Bucky, his mom, his old schoolmates, Alice) and flushed so brightly it was a good thing he was wearing the blue cowl. He'd topped it all off by almost dropping one of the singers at the end. She was nice about it, but hadn't said more than two words to him since.

Since then he'd improved, if slightly. Early indications were that the show was great for war bonds sales, so Senator Brandt had slapped Steve on the back and said _you're going on the road, son._

Steve craned his neck so he could see New York in the distance behind the train.

He thought back to Christmas of 1935, when he'd been small and on the verge of catching the flu (again). Those days already felt so strange and distant. That was the last Christmas Alice had spent in Brooklyn before her parents died, and she'd earned enough money singing that year to buy him a proper Christmas present: a metal compass.

_I could tell you something sweet and stupid about how I hope you always end up going in the right direction. _Her small, coy smile. _But truthfully, I'm worried you'll get yourself lost the minute you leave New York._

He still had the compass, at the bottom of his travel bag. When he packed it he'd tried to tell himself it was practical; every soldier needed a compass, didn't matter where it came from.

That Christmas, Alice had looked into his eyes and said with utter certainty that he would leave New York one day. _As a soldier or by some other way, you will. You're not meant to be here forever._

Steve looked out the window and watched the skyscrapers of Manhattan fade into the distance.

He _was_ a soldier – a Captain – but this wasn't exactly how he'd imagined it.

* * *

Bucky's regiment shipped straight from England to North Africa the day after Steve's twenty fifth birthday, and a week later joined the landings at Sicily. They knew they'd be pushing north into Italy in a few months.

It was a whole lot of hurry-up-and-wait. Long, restless days on a ship followed by a mad dash up a beach under gunfire that felt like it took hours but probably only lasted fifteen minutes. Some of the recruits flinched and had to be yelled at before they pressed on, but Bucky had trained well for this. He lead his fire team up the beach and on subsequent patrols, learning just the right balance between barked orders and light humor.

A few days into the Sicilian campaign, he got a letter from Steve. It seemed normal enough: well wishes for his travels, and passing on love from his sisters back home. But Bucky's eyes narrowed as he read it. Steve was up to something. His handwriting had changed.

When the next letter came with a post office return address and some vague explanation about how the post service had mucked up his deliveries and they'd readdress his letter when it arrived, Bucky _knew _something was up. But he was too far away to do anything about it. Well, he could threaten him extensively via post, but those threats barely worked in _person_.

So he let Steve keep his secrets, and as he lay in his cot listening to explosions on the front he tried not to feel guilty for being glad that Steve would never make it over here.

* * *

In mid July, Alice and Otto traveled to their monthly performance in Zürich, after which they'd meet their SSR handler. They'd done at least a dozen of these now, but they knew better than to let down their guard.

It was past midnight, and all the backup singers had gone back to the hotel. Alice and Otto were alone in the dressing room. Alice sat at the mirror, wiping off her makeup, and Otto gathered the various files and documents they'd stashed in their bags.

"It's a pity we couldn't find out more about what's been going on with HYDRA," Otto muttered, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "We'll have to try for more by next month."

"Whatever's happened is still new, we'll find out more once everyone lets down their guard," Alice said, glancing down at the cloth in her hand to see the red streak of her lipstick. "We-" she cut off as she saw the door handle push down out of the corner of her eye. Otto shoved his documents into a big pile of sheet music.

The dressing room door swung open, and Alice's heart stopped for a beat when she realized it wasn't their usual young, male handler. But then she focused on the newcomer in the mirror and spun around in her chair with wide eyes.

"_Peggy_?"

Peggy Carter stood in the doorway with her red-painted fingernails on the door handle, wearing a modest brown coat over a knee-length grey dress and stockings. She'd dressed up for a theater performance, with pearl earrings and her hair in careful curls. At Alice's stunned exclamation she lifted her finger to her lips with a small smile, then closed the door behind her.

"Hello, you two," she said softly. Her eyes flicked over them both and her red lips curved into a soft smile.

"Ms Carter," Otto said fondly as he reached out to shake her hand.

"Otto, it's wonderful to see you again."

Alice slowly stood, staring at Peggy. "What on earth are you doing over here?"

Peggy turned amused eyes on her. "It's wonderful to see you too, Alice."

Alice huffed, then strode across the dressing room to pull the dark-haired agent into a hug. Peggy stiffened for a moment before patting her on the back. They hadn't been particularly touchy-feely back in Brooklyn, but the sight of her had startled Alice and she hadn't realized how much she'd missed her friend.

"Are you alright?" Peggy asked softly.

Alice let her go and pulled away. "I'm fine, really." Peggy probably knew most of what Alice had been up to. The assassinations, the false smiles, the nights spent in dark alleys. She didn't know about Steve or Tom, at least she hoped not, but it was enough to have her here. "I mean it though, what are you doing here?"

Peggy glanced between Otto and Alice. "The SSR's been reassigned. I'll be your new handler. We… perhaps you'd better sit down."

Silently, Alice returned to her chair. She still wore her white performance gown, which draped about her ankles as she sat. Otto perched on the dressing table, his face grim.

Peggy smoothed down her civilian clothes and then looked up at them both. "I can't tell you everything, but the SSR has been working towards one of its main goals in New York for some time now. Last month… that hope failed." Her eyes darkened, then flicked to Alice. "Doctor Erskine has been killed."

Distantly, Alice was glad that she'd already sat down because she felt as if her feet had been knocked out from under her. She couldn't even school her expression: her face twisted with shock, then warped into some approximation of the distress she felt. A shuddering breath escaped her lips and she reached up to cover her mouth.

Otto leaned over to place his hand on hers. "I'm so sorry, Alice." She'd never told him about Erskine, but he knew her well enough by now to know that she rarely showed her grief.

Peggy's fierce façade dropped a little, revealing that underbelly of empathy that she concealed.

Alice took a deep breath. "I barely knew him." She knew he'd been so tired, that first time they'd met at Castle Kauffman, when he'd asked to borrow some of her hope. In Brooklyn she'd really gotten to know his kindness, his quick, warm wit, and the grief he hid from so many. _Frä__u__lein, you're not a puppet any longer. You have a choice._

She knew he deserved so much more than this war had given him.

Alice lifted her eyes to Peggy. "Who killed him?"

"A HYDRA assassin. He's dead now." Peggy's eyes were hard. "Erskine's work… it succeeded, but just once, and Phillips doesn't think that's enough for what we had hoped. So we've been reassigned to Europe now, we're back on the ground. We'll fight HYDRA from here with what troops we have."

Alice frowned. "And what do you think?"

Peggy sighed. "I think that what Erskine achieved was enough. But we didn't put our faith in h- it." She shrugged. "I suppose we'll never know."

Otto pulled his hand away from Alice's and crossed his arms. "So how will this change our assignment?"

Peggy's chin lifted and Alice saw _Agent Carter _slide back over her face. "It shouldn't, really. We'll still need all the intelligence you can acquire, though we may give you more targeted assignments. We're going to have you do some work in Italy since that's the new focus of the campaign."

Alice nodded. The Allies had bombed Rome just two days ago.

"So," Peggy said, taking a seat on one of the backup singer's chairs. "What have you learned about HYDRA?"

Otto and Alice exchanged a glance, and then began to tell their new handler everything that they knew.

* * *

A few days after Switzerland Alice performed at a concert hall in Hamburg, Otto's home city. It was a truly beautiful place, with a river that flowed in from the west and split into dozens of offshoots as it spread across the city. This of course meant that the river teemed with U-boats.

Alice's last performance went off without a hitch, and she went out for a couple of hours afterward to coordinate with local resistance. No sooner had she fallen into her hotel bed, exhausted, than she heard an ear-splitting _boom _that shook the walls of her hotel. She jerked up and looked out the window to see a fireball erupting a few miles away across the city, close to the shipyards. Suddenly five more fireballs erupted, closer this time, and the concussive _booms _shook the hotel three seconds later.

Sirens began to wail.

The adrenaline turned Alice's focus sharp and clear after that. She sprang out of bed and into the hallway, finding Otto there with his hair sticking up. They joined the flood of terrified hotel guests downstairs, out across the street and down into the bomb shelter. Alice heard the whir of plane engines overhead as she descended into the shelter.

They sat underground for over an hour, a couple hundred terrified civilians and a handful of soldiers, all in their night things. The shelter's roof was shaped like a cathedral, making the whispered voices and occasional sobs echo strangely.

They felt the earth shake above them and heard the distant explosions. Otto's face was grim. They might be the only people in this bomb shelter who were somewhat glad for the bombings (it meant the Allied forces were pressing closer in to Germany) but Hamburg was still his home. He'd met his partner here. Yesterday he'd taken Alice to the river and pointed out the buildings near the shipyards that he used to play at when he was a boy. Alice doubted those buildings had survived the night.

An hour later the explosions subsided, and half an hour after that the whistle for _all clear _sounded. Alice and Otto emerged out onto the street and looked around to see fires burning across the city. Alice reached down to take Otto's hand.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

"It's just a place," he sighed.

But Alice knew a place could be more than that, even if you'd grown to resent it for what it symbolized. She couldn't imagine the pain she'd feel if she saw bombs being dropped on Brooklyn. Or Vienna.

"Let's go pack our bags."

* * *

The bombing of Hamburg continued for another eight days, a coordinated back-and-forth between the British air force at night and the US air force during the day. When they weren't bombing, the city was burning. By the end of it tens of thousands of people had died and the city was mostly destroyed.

Despite herself, Alice's heart ached. Those were _civilians _that had died. Yes, the shipyards and the U-boat docks were gone, but so was Otto's childhood home. And she hadn't signed up to protect those people. Quite the opposite.

She and Otto shouldered their guilt and their grief, and kept working.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Fifty Years On: Gomorrah_' by Hugo Strausse, 24 July 1993

_Codenamed Operation Gomorrah, the campaign of bombing on the city of Hamburgh in July of 1943 was at the time the largest series of air raids in history, and the most devastating civilian loss Germany had faced. Over the course of 8 days and 7 nights the RAF and the USAAF jettisoned tonnes of incendiaries over the city of Hamburg, causing massive casualties, destruction of infrastructure and warehouses vital for the war, and on the 27th, a firestorm that culminated in a fire tornado that stretched 1000 feet into the sky. Over 40,000 civilians were killed and a vast number of them fled, effectively leaving Hamburg a crippled and deserted city. While undoubtedly a major victory for the Allies, who were yet to make significant inroads against Germany, Hamburg still bears the scars of those 7 nights._

* * *

A week or so later, Alice caught a passing mention of unrest in the United States from a French newspaper: there'd been race riots in Harlem after an African American soldier was shot by police. The paper was vague about the damage and if anyone had died. Alice's heart sank to her feet as she read it.

She wanted desperately to find out if Tom was okay. He lived in Harlem, he would have been at the heart of all this. But she had no way of knowing.

She wondered if this was how he felt, every time he learned something new about the war.

Days later, a resistance fighter named Maria Terwiel was executed. Alice had followed her arrest and trial in the papers: the woman had helped to hide Jews and joined the anti-fascist group _Die Rote Kapelle _[_Red Orchestra_], whom Otto had some connections with.

She'd been guillotined.

Another reminder of what Alice could expect if she got caught.

The Americans increased their bombings on German soil.

* * *

Georgia in August was a sweltering, humid place, so hot even in the performance venues that a few of the chorus girls nearly fainted on stage. Steve usually had to peel off his uniform afterwards, coated in sweat.

He'd gotten more or less used to the performances (the serum, he'd found, made his muscle memory a lot better), but now they'd decided to film a short movie when they reached California next month. So now as well as the performance, the meet-and-greets afterwards and the radio talk shows, he had a script to memorize.

To everyone he was Captain America, who'd sprung into the war fully-formed and ready to be the beacon of patriotism. But Steve was still adjusting to the new body and his new abilities. The serum had changed almost everything. He slept differently, he realized, and he noticed so much more around him. He'd picked up the habit of quiet observation from Alice, but now everything seemed so much _sharper._ It helped with reading the chorus girls, who'd been bewilderingly hard to understand at first. They'd more or less warmed to him by now.

He'd had to re-learn how to draw with his different hands, because not drawing was making him go insane. It was an outlet, a way to take his observations about himself and the new places he'd been visiting and get them out of his head.

He kept up writing to Bucky. Bucky didn't tell him much about the action he was seeing overseas, and Steve didn't tell him anything about Project Rebirth or his tour across the country, and they both knew they were keeping things back. Steve wondered, as he crafted his letters, _how did we all get so good at keeping secrets from each other?_

* * *

Poster titled '_TWO NIGHTS ONLY: SEE CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE STAR SPANGLED SINGERS INSPIRE AND AMAZE AT THE CULLEN PERFORMANCE HALL_', Houston, Texas. Poster bears an illustration of CAPTAIN AMERICA pointing at the viewer, with sketches of Star Spangled Singers gracing the edges of the page. Sponsor: USO (August 27 and 28, 1943).

* * *

Otto and Alice had a two week scheduled stay in Austria, but Alice didn't use the time to relax in her uncle's house. She had work to do. She started by reconnecting with her network in Vienna, which Hugo and Vano ran with a steady hand. They still had about fifty Jewish people under protection in the city, under the cover of secrecy or hiding in plain sight with false papers.

Their network had switched more towards intelligence gathering and resistance. They had a few connections in the Catholic church now, which was trying to spread an anti-fascist message with limited success.

Alice had a different goal in mind, though. For a few years she'd been hearing of construction somewhere in the mountains near Salzburg. Once the construction had been completed the rumors had shifted to stories of men in strange uniforms frequenting Salzburg, truck convoys roaring through the countryside, the occasional missing local.

Alice reconnected with some old friends in Salzburg and set up a few performances there. In the heart of Salzburg, she followed the rumors. A day's work brought her to a supply warehouse in the city. It was definitely HYDRA, if the uniforms of the drivers who pulled in and out of the warehouse were any indication. Alice couldn't see inside, but if, as she suspected, she was on the trail of a HYDRA base, they would need a steady supply of food, arms, and parts. Otto sat with her in a salon across the road for the better part of a day, as they noted each arriving and departing truck.

"That's the same truck that left before noon," Otto noted as he sipped his coffee, not looking too obviously out the window.

Alice checked her watch and scribbled down the return time beside the truck's number plate. "So that's… just about two hours. That matches the other trucks. Leaving time for offloading, we must be looking at somewhere less than an hour's drive from here."

Otto rubbed his chin. "We're right on the border to Germany, that still leaves a lot of place."

Alice finished her tea. "Those trucks are driving south, and the initial construction workers said the site was up in the mountains. I need a map."

They returned to the hotel and Alice spread a map of the area around Salzburg on her bed. Otto stood over her with his arms crossed. She traced routes in pencil, calculating vehicle speeds and military check points in her head, until she eventually landed on a mountain range 40 miles south of the city: the _Salzburger Schieferalpen _[_Salzburg Slate Alps_].

"You're sure?" Otto asked.

Alice cocked her head at the map. The mountains were in a good place, convenient for access to Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Italy, with a small enough local population that rumors wouldn't travel far. Alice was just good at listening.

She nodded. "One way to find out."

The next day, she and Otto took one of her uncle's old cars up into the mountains. At all the checkpoints they explained they were on a leisure tour, and no one found that strange. The Slate Alps were beautiful, with thick forests hugging the hillsides and the occasional small village tucked into the folds of a mountain. There was a lovely flat lake at the bottom of the main valley. It was a quiet area. Save for the convoys of trucks rolling through.

Alice and Otto kept mainly off the main roads as they didn't want the trucks to notice _them_, but soon enough they had followed the sound of rumbling engines to… well, it looked more like a factory than a military base. They hadn't gotten very close, just a mountain road slightly above the base, so Alice could glimpse smokestacks and a large warehouse-like building through the thick pines. Tall, barbed-wire-topped fences wrapped around the base.

"Drive on," Otto said, carefully marking out the location on their map. Alice stepped on the gas. "That's a bigger base than I expected," he muttered. "We've been getting rumors of increased HYDRA activity, something about those new weapons. They must be increasing output here."

"Output of _what_," Alice muttered grimly.

When they took the base location to their next meet with Peggy, Peggy noted down the location with raised eyebrows. "Thank you. We won't be able to move on it for a long time, but it's good to know where it is."

Alice shrugged. She knew Austria wouldn't be on the table for infiltration for a while. "They've got other bases. I'm doing my best to pin them down, but HYDRA stopped sharing with the rest of the Nazis a while ago. I think they may be preparing to move against them, but I don't know how crazy they've gotten."

Peggy's eyes darkened. "Crazy enough for anything, at this point. Don't underestimate them."

* * *

On Alice's birthday at the start of September, Bucky slogged his way up through Italy with his regiment, chasing the front. He'd been training to kill for so many months that when it came down to it, it wasn't very hard at all.

* * *

In Vienna, Alice threw herself another massive birthday party. This year the tone wasn't quite as raucous and celebratory – the war had gotten a lot harder, and even the socialites had learned to be cautious. The Nazis had lost North Africa and the Eastern Front, and were losing ground in Italy. They were still firmly entrenched in the heartlands of Europe, but everyone had begun to feel the stretch. They'd been at total war for seven months now.

Alice matched the mood: this was her twenty fifth birthday, the first one since she was twelve that she hadn't celebrated in some way with Steve and Bucky.

The blonde Propaganda Department secretary was there again, scowling at Alice, and Alice resisted scowling back.

"You're a true comfort to us, _Frä__u__lein _Siren," said one _Luftwaffe _commander, a few drinks in. He'd sat at the table next to Alice and held court, smoking a cigar. "Your song is a balm to the spirit and you are an inspiration to the Aryan youth of the Reich."

Alice smiled though her guts twisted.

A general at the other side of the table let out a huff of agreement. "You're a true symbol, Siren, unlike the Americans with their gaudy, commercialized _Captain America_."

Alice joined the round of laughter that rippled around the table. She'd heard about the Captain America war bond show, mostly through sneering German propaganda with cartoonish depictions of the man. She did agree that the idea was awfully… well, _American_, the kind of thing Matthias used to call 'idealism wrapped up with a price tag'. But she wasn't going to snub anything which helped the Allied war effort. All sides needed their propaganda.

And if the Germans reacted by leaning more heavily on their prized Siren, that only helped her do her job.

A flicker of her unease must have crossed her face, because the Luftwaffe commander leaned over and patted her arm with a heavy hand. "The Americans' icon may earn them some trifling money, Siren, but you inspire the _soul. _You give our men the strength to fight. It is more than money that wins a war."

Alice smiled, and suppressed the shiver that threatened to wrack her. Could it be that she'd done _too _much?

* * *

Steve didn't realize what day it was. He'd been on the road over two months now, done over 100 shows, signed thousands of photographs and comics, had bumbled his way through one film and they had already planned a second one, and he wasn't even 100% sure which state he was currently in.

But then one of the chorus girls capped her lipstick and said "Let's do the USO extra proud today, girls, it's the third anniversary of the war." The girls agreed enthusiastically, but Steve's stomach dropped.

September 2nd.

Alice's birthday.

He dropped his head into his hands where he sat at the edge of the dressing room.

"Steve, sweetie?" said Agnes, one of the girls he usually lifted on the motorcycle at the end of the performance. Her hand landed on his shoulder. "You're on in three, you feeling okay?"

He drew in a deep breath and lifted his head. "I'm fine."

Her brows drew together. "Anniversary hit you hard, huh? It shocked me too, time flies by so quickly. But don't worry, we're going to win." She shot him a reassuring smile, then jammed her blue helmet on her head and whirled toward the stage entrance.

Half a minute later, Steve followed her. When he marched out onto stage with the girls striding behind him, he looked up into the bright lights and felt so, so tired.

* * *

After her birthday, Alice and Otto traveled to Italy for a performance tour. The Italian Fascist government had fallen apart and Mussolini had been arrested, but while Alice was there he was rescued by the Germans and set up a new regime. Italy was practically a German territory at this point, though it continued to be snatched up by the Allies from the south, so there were plenty of weary troops for Alice to perform to. And plenty of weary generals with loose lips.

* * *

Poster titled '_SIRENENLIED' [SIREN_ _SONG_]. Text [translated]: '_You've seen her on the stages of opera houses and performance halls in Berlin. This Saturday, see her at your mess hall! For one night only the Reich's own Siren will bring her enchanting voice to entertain our division. Don't miss it!_' Image: a black-and-white photograph of the Siren in Wehrmacht uniform, beaming at the camera. Sponsor: Propaganda Department (September 15, 1943)

* * *

The 107th took a small Italian city towards the end of September, overseen by a division called the SSR. They spent the following days establishing camp in the city and getting some rest.

Bucky liked his four-strong fire team, they were good soldiers and they trusted him. They might not have been friends had they all met under different circumstances, but they got along alright. Currently he was soaking up some sun outside his tent, his cap over his eyes and his fingers laced over his stomach, as his fire team sat in a ring of chairs and played cards.

Three of them were teasing the fourth, O'Malley, about the _Captain America _comic he'd bought from a private in another regiment the other day.

"What are you, six? You chose to spend your money on that rag instead of Sawyer's pin-ups?"

Bucky chuckled under his breath.

O'Malley made a noise of protest. "Sawyer draws those himself, that last one you bought he'd forgotten to draw her whole _left arm-_"

"I'm not lookin' at them for their left arms!"

"Christ," said Connors, and leaned over to switch on the radio. Staticky crackle turned into piano notes. "Jesus, there's still only that German station available. Those bastards are having a goddamn concert over there, did you hear?"

"This ain't too bad," said O'Malley. Bucky heard the rustle of cards. "Bet."

One of them must've turned up the radio volume, because the German song suddenly rang out clear between the tents. Bucky froze.

_That's Alice._

Slowly, he unlaced his fingers and pulled his cap off his face to stare at the radio. The German lyrics crooned soft and lilting through the speakers, slightly echoey as if it were being recorded live at a concert.

He didn't understand the words, but he _knew that voice. _He'd heard Alice sing countless times before, and had had to suffer through Steve playing her records non stop when she'd first gotten big. He didn't know this song, but he _knew her. _That was Alice's voice, making German words beautiful, on the other side of the war. In _Italy._

A few moments later, Connors looked up. "Wait, where'd Sarge go?"

"Stormed off that way," said O'Malley, vaguely flapping his hand in the direction Bucky had left. "Guess he ain't a fan of music."

* * *

Alice's performances got pushed further north as the front encroached. The Italian campaign seemed pretty even between the Germans and the Allies as far as she could tell. She got used to picking out the difference between _Luftwaffe_, RAF and USAAF just from their engines rumbling overhead, and even spotted a couple of dogfights as they traveled the Italian countryside. Each time she spotted the American and British planes she felt a strange mix of pride and fear.

Alice performed exclusively for the German troops, but when she did interact with the Italian civilians she sensed their resentment toward the Germans. Support for Mussolini had collapsed as the war stretched on, and support for the Germans had been practically non-existent to begin with. The people here were tired. They wanted an end to the bombs and the troops tramping through their homes.

Alice's Italian was rusty, so she spoke English with a British accent when she snuck out at night as Al, which more or less got people on her side. The British were better than the Germans, at any rate.

She connected with an Italian resistance group hiding in the countryside north of Milan, and after some back and forth with Otto agreed to supply them with weapons. It took about a week for a few members of her network in Austria to drive down with a truck full of weapons (disguised under raw sewage – the soldiers at checkpoints only let them stop long enough to check their plumbers permits before insisting that they move on) and stash them in the foliage at the base of a mountain. The weapons might smell a bit, but they'd give the group a significant advantage in their operations.

HYDRA was elusive in Italy. They'd drawn into themselves over the past few months since their hushed-up break with the mainstream Nazi leadership, but Alice didn't think they were gone for good. It felt like they were building up to something.

She sensed hints of their influence in Italy: mentions of strange uniforms in the north, even one wild rumor from a farmer about a tank the size of a house. Otto went to the field the farmer said he'd seen the tank roll through, but a recent rainstorm had washed away any possible tracks.

Alice was pretty sure HYDRA had a base in Italy, since they seemed to have a foothold in all major Axis countries (she was still trying to pin down one in France, and she had suspicions about another in Belgium), but she didn't think she'd gotten anywhere near it yet. So far the best way to find them was to follow rumors of strange weapons and uniforms, and disappearances of civilians and soldiers alike.

* * *

October, 1943

"Oh yeah? What d'you know, you limey bastard?"

"Oh that's very original, really-"

"Cut it out," Bucky interjected from where he sat on the floor of the metal cage the five men had been shoved into. He dropped his head back against the bars. "Us fighting is what these guys want."

As one, all five men in the cage looked across at the black-armored guards at either end of the darkened room, and up at the guards striding on the platform above. Sensing their gaze, one of the guards looked over. He twitched the electric baton at his hip.

Bucky and the others looked away.

The room they found themselves in was long, concrete and cold, with about thirty cages packed with soldiers from all different armies, the only light being the residual electric glow of the factory filtering in through grates over the cages. Bucky'd been thrown in with two other Americans from different regiments, a British Major, and a fellow from the French Resistance, who as far as he'd worked out had been sent to Italy on an intelligence mission. The guy didn't speak any English.

They'd been here a week. Just a week, Bucky'd kept careful track of the days.

A week since two hundred of his fellow soldiers from the 107th had gone up against the Wehrmacht forces outside Azzano. It had been a hard-fought battle, Bucky's men hunkered down in a crater in the grassy hills under the cover of darkness as they tried to get an angle on the Germans. The night air tore apart with the rattle of machine guns. One of his fire-team, Connors, had been clipped in the shoulder by a rifle round.

Bucky had sighted a German division pouring over the lip of the closest hill and centered a soldier in his crosshairs, only for the man to just… disintegrate in a flash of blue light. He'd blinked, and then suddenly the night was illuminated with vivid blue arcs of light pouring down the hillside. Before Bucky's eyes, the light hit a contingent of German soldiers and they _dissolved_.

He'd tracked the rounds of light back up the hill to spot the most enormous tank he'd ever seen: it was the size of a two story house, rolling across the field toward them. A cannon the size of a tree trunk, treads that would mow down three men standing abreast and crush them to pieces. That massive cannon had swiveled with a whine of hydraulics and Bucky'd found himself staring down its hollow center.

In the German cage, Bucky flinched at the memory of the bright blue light tearing across the night sky toward him.

He'd lost every man of his fire team. Their families wouldn't ever be able to bury their bodies.

And Bucky and the rest of the survivors had been corralled and marched for days across the harsh terrain, tramping on tired feet and injuries and getting burned in the harsh sun during the day. Once they'd arrived at this facility they'd been put to work straight away in… well, he supposed it was a factory. He knew they were manufacturing weapons of some kind, powered by the same blue light he'd seen spitting out of that massive tank, but their overseers were careful to only keep them working on one small element of the whole, so they never got a glimpse of the bigger picture.

Workers dropped like flies all around him. Illness, succumbing to their injuries from battle, or just plain exhaustion. The guards didn't care, they just dragged them out and tossed their bodies into a furnace.

If they were still alive, they disappeared to the isolation ward.

At first Bucky had thought he'd been captured by the Germans, but these guys had fired on the Germans. He'd since heard the word _HYDRA _bandied about – the guards certainly said _Hail HYDRA _enough – but he didn't know shit about what HYDRA actually was.

Bucky'd heard enough horror stories about POWs taken by the Nazis. He had a feeling these guys were another breed entirely.

He wondered how long it would take the commanders of the 107th to get a letter to his family. He wondered how long it would take for Steve to find out. Their letters had been growing further and further apart. Steve probably wouldn't notice that Bucky had stopped sending letters for another month.

The thought made him feel incredibly lonely.

Though he was never alone, not with the other four men in his cage (who doubled as his work team). They'd gotten in an all-out brawl their first night, but since then they'd grown closer. Save for Dugan sniping at the others from time to time. Bucky liked them well enough – Falsworth, the Brit, was a welcome source of calm against Dum-Dum Dugan's bluster and fighting spirit, and the Frenchie Dernier's effervescence. Gabe Jones, a Private from Georgia, was a good-humored kid who hid a sharp intellect.

Didn't matter, he supposed. Bucky was getting sick. He could feel it in his lungs, in the weakness seeping into his limbs and the fogginess in his mind. He'd seen Steve through enough illnesses in the past to know the signs.

But here, those who got sick disappeared.

"Where the hell are we, anyway?" he said thickly, partly to break the tension after Dugan and Falsworth's squabble. After losing most of his regiment in the battle and the violent slog into captivity, he hadn't thought to ask.

"From how long we walked, and the signs I spotted on the way in?" Gabe scratched his chin. "Austria, I think."

Bucky's head jerked up. "What?"

"Austria," Gabe said, like Bucky was stupid. "We crossed the border."

"Goddamn Nazis," said Dugan resentfully.

Dernier rolled his eyes. "_Combien de fois devons-nous vous dire que ce ne sont pas des Nazis?_"

"Right," Gabe agreed. "These guys fought _against_ the Nazis."

Bucky's head dropped back again and clunked against the metal bar. "This ain't how I imagined visiting Austria," he muttered.

He'd thought about it now and then, imagining the scenes from Alice's first letters in which she'd described Vienna's beautiful streets and the breathtaking mountains of the countryside.

"What?" asked Falsworth.

Bucky shook his head, wincing as his vision spun. "Nothing. Doesn't matter."

* * *

Excerpt from Doctor Arnim Zola's Notes, October 1943 [Translated]

_... many of the prisoners are weak and failing. The trouble is finding a subject fit enough to withstand the testing, but not so fit that we cannot spare them from the factory. The wardens have also requested that I take subjects who have caused them trouble on the factory floor (some have displayed resistant behavior) so I will factor that request into my next subject selection. I have observed some soldiers exhibiting symptoms of illness while still maintaining their work, and I believe I will take my next subject from that category, to ensure best results for the experimentation. After all, Doctor Erskine's serum success occurred with a sub-standard physical model. Tomorrow I will make a selection._

* * *

Instead of travelling to Switzerland that October, Alice met Peggy in Italy, in a bombed out town behind Axis lines in the dead of night. Alice was nervous about Peggy making the journey, but as Peggy told her when she arrived, disguised in a brown shawl and a silver wig, _the Germans have bigger things to worry about than a lone woman talking a walk in the woods._

Peggy seemed more solemn than usual as they took a seat in the pews of an abandoned church with half the roof caved in.

"Are you alright?" Alice asked softly. The sound carried through the dark, crumbling space.

Peggy gave her a half-smile. "We lost most of one of our main regiments at Azzano week ago. The 107th."

Alice's brow furrowed. _Steve's father's regiment. _She hoped no one she knew from Brooklyn had joined, then felt guilty for the hope. Whoever they were, those men had families waiting for them to come home.

She swallowed. "HYDRA, right?" The German commanders had been furious to hear of HYDRA's betrayal, and the battle marked the beginning of true hostilities between the Nazis and HYDRA. "I heard there were survivors on both sides, they've likely been taken to the Austrian base. If you like I could go back, see about infiltrating it or attempting to communicate with the POWs inside-"

"No," Peggy said with a firm shake of her head. "From what you observed, that base is heavily guarded, and we don't know what Schmidt has up his sleeve. We'd only be risking your position."

Alice furrowed her brow. "I've also heard that Doctor Zola is currently at that base. They had a new load of scientific equipment go through." Alice had a friend in Salzburg keeping an eye on the base for her.

"That does not bode well," Peggy murmured.

"I'll have my friends keep an eye on it, see what else I can get you."

"Thank you. Though… at this point, it will take a miracle to rescue those men." Alice felt a heavy dread settle in her gut. Peggy adjusted her wig and then turned to face Alice fully. "HYDRA fought with weapons that no one has seen before. Anything you can find out about these would be vital, Alice."

Alice nodded. "Of course. Now that they're at outright war with the Nazis, my connections in the Nazi party have been furiously digging up information about them. That should make my job easier."

Peggy's eyes flicked over Alice. "And you're alright?"

Alice shrugged. "I'm a Nazi."

To Alice's surprise, that made Peggy smile. "Oh, Alice. If you're a Nazi, then I'm a cocker spaniel." Alice's lips quirked. Peggy leaned across the pew and took her hand. "I know you don't need me to tell you this, but you _can do this._ You may make play as one of them, but you are not, nor have you ever been, a Nazi. Nazis are afraid of difference and anything they don't understand, and hate what they are afraid of. That has never been you."

Alice gripped Peggy's warm hand and clenched her jaw to keep from crying. "I know I should… I know this work is the most important thing I've done. But I've… lost…" she blew out a breath. "I've lost people I care about."

Peggy's dark eyes glistened. "Alice. I'm so sorry." She could see all the grief Alice kept at bay. "One day they'll see, I promise. We'll make them all see."

Alice nodded in the darkness for a moment, staring up at the smashed church altar. It was littered with fragments of stained glass that gleamed in the moonlight.

After half a minute, she let go of Peggy's hand to reach up and brush away the few tears that had escaped. "Thank you," she said roughly. She cleared her throat. "Now, Otto had a few other things he wanted me to pass along…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm doing my best with historical accuracy, but the MCU version of the Italian campaign is just... a total mess, so please excuse any inaccuracies/anachronisms you spot if you're a history nerd.
> 
> Also I know in the movie there's a deleted scene which implies Bucky, Dugan, and Jones knew each other before they were captured by HYDRA, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and HYDRA would probably have separated them. MCU wiki seems to think they were in different divisions. Anyway, that's just me being picky, carry on!


	37. Chapter Twenty Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this chapter is late, see my note below x

November, 1943

When Senator Brandt told Steve that he was going to Europe he'd thought, for a brief moment, that he was finally being given a command. But no, the same old show with the same old film crew were being shipped to a tour of Italy to bolster the troops. Captain America comic sales had apparently been quite popular in the ranks.

So Steve marched around on stage with the dancers in their first ever Italian performance and as it came to a close he stood in front of the rusty microphone, trying and failing to make the speech part of the performance land. But his audience of green-clad soldiers just sat there and stared at him. Steve watched one guy in the front row pick his nose and then inspect his finger.

He'd told Brandt they should change the performance. But according to Brandt it was _tried and true._

"_Bring back the girls!_"

Well. Then they all started shouting at him – and Steve was pretty sure he spotted Gilmore Hodge who he'd gone through Basic with, that asshole – and now they were throwing things at him.

Steve made a strategic retreat.

The clouds broke and the performance area cleared out, leaving Steve alone on the stage steps, sketching.

Agent Carter took him by surprise. She emerged on the steps behind him, perfectly pressed in her uniform as if she'd stepped straight off the streets of Brooklyn, and they started talking about his performance.

"I understand you're America's new hope," she said with an edge in her voice.

"Bond sales take a 10% bump in every state I visit."

"Is that Senator Brandt I hear?"

Steve couldn't look her in the eye. "At least he's got me doing this. Phillips would've had me stuck in a lab."

"And these are your only two options? A lab rat or a dancing monkey?" He felt her gaze drop to the open notebook with its cartoon monkey sketch beside him. He'd thought about covering it up, but why bother? It may as well be a mirror. "You were meant for more than this, you know."

For the first time in a while, Steve remembered Doctor Erskine and his earnest hope in Steve and what Steve could become. He wondered what Erksine would say if he could see him now. He wondered what Bucky would say. His mom. Alice. At least, the Alice that he'd known.

He glanced back at Peggy, words on his lips… but then looked away.

"What?"

He sighed. "Y'know, for the longest time I dreamed about… coming overseas and being on the front lines, serving my country…" all those sketches he'd drawn of himself, Bucky, and Alice as soldiers, all the strategy books he used to read under the table at school. _Now isn't the time to be a soldier, Steve._ "Finally got everything I wanted." He looked down. "And I'm wearing tights."

A car horn sounded in the distance behind them, and Steve and Peggy glanced back to see a military ambulance jeep pull up at the medical tent. Two medics climbed out into the rain with a stretcher between them. Steve was too far to make out the details of the man on the stretcher, save for the red blur of blood. It wasn't the first ambulance Steve had seen since arriving at the camp.

"They look like they've been through hell."

"These men more than most," Peggy replied. At his questioning look she told him about the recent battle near Azzano and how HYDRA had demolished all resistance. Steve's heart sank. Erskine had been so insistent about the danger Schmidt posed. And here Steve sat, doing nothing about it.

"Your audience contain what was left of the 107th," Peggy told him. "The rest were killed or captured."

Steve's head jerked up. _Bucky._

His mind had been made up the moment he heard about the 107th. After that, it didn't take much: Colonel Phillips telling him that Bucky hadn't come back and then dismissing him all in the same breath; Phillips gesturing to the map beside his command desk and saying _they're thirty miles behind the lines, through some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe_; Steve's eyes following his gesture to the map with little flag marked _H, _pinned south of Salzburg.

(He wasn't aware of Peggy standing behind him, following his gaze to the map. He didn't know that Peggy thought of determined green eyes and saying _at this point, it would take a miracle to save those men_.) When he stormed out of the tent, she followed.

In the costume tent he threw on uniform pants and his own leather jacket over his costume, arguing with Peggy who at first seemed to be trying to convince him to stay, but then looked into his eyes and told him she believed he was meant for more than this.

She pulled him out of the car he'd been intending to steal and brought him to Howard Stark.

* * *

When Peggy Carter watched Steve Rogers dive out of the plane against her orders into the night sky erupting with anti-aircraft fire, she thought: _that absolute bastard._

Then she thought: _well, if wars were won with confidence, we'd be storming Berlin tomorrow._

"Close the damn door, it's freezing!" shouted Howard over his shoulder even as he wheeled the plane out of the range of the anti-aircraft guns. Peggy took once last glance down at Steve's billowing parachute, then slammed the door shut.

Howard glanced back at her. "So, fondue in Lucerne?"

"Mr Stark."

"Back to base it is."

* * *

Everyone had been telling Steve how untested he was, and that may be true, but he didn't run into the base blindly. He'd read countless accounts of infiltration warfare and solo combat, plus he had the serum to make up for what he didn't know. So he knew the best entry point was via the supply trucks (which turned out to have some HYDRA soldiers in them, but again – _serum_), and then got in close to the factory via the mostly-uninhabited vehicle lots. He couldn't stay in the massive factory itself for too long, as the busy space teemed with people, so he pocketed what looked like a glowing blue battery and crept his way to the prisoner pens.

* * *

When Gabe Jones, Dum-Dum Dugan, James Falsworth, Jacques Dernier and Jim Morita first met Captain America, most of them thought he was probably going to die soon.

Oh well. He'd let them out and he was going looking for Barnes. At the very least he'd be a good distraction for their escape.

* * *

When Bucky first met Captain America, he thought _ow _and then he thought: _Steve?_

A few seconds later as Captain America hauled him off Doctor Zola's table, Bucky thought: _what in the hell has this idiot done now?_

* * *

When Johann Schmidt first met Captain America he thought: _so, the film starlet hasn't proved completely hopeless after all._

Then Steve Rogers punched him in the face.

* * *

When Steve and Bucky caught up with the rest of the HYDRA prisoners on the road leading through the mountain ranges, they seemed pleasantly surprised.

"Thought you probably died back in that fireball," said a mustached man Steve would later come to know as Dum-Dum. The man turned to Bucky. "Good to see you in one piece, Barnes. You alright?"

Bucky nodded sharply. "Good to be in one piece. Everyone, this is my friend Steve."

'Everyone' turned to stare at Steve. "You know Captain America, Barnes?" questioned one of the soldiers from the 107th.

Bucky turned to look up at Steve – _never had to do that before _– and then let out a breath of a laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do."

His tone was light, but Steve sensed a hidden note in it.

_Oh boy, I'm going to have to do a lot of explaining._

Steve clapped Bucky on the shoulder – gently, he could tell his friend needed a medic – and then looked up at the gathered soldiers. "Alright, we're about thirty miles from the front. With the help of those tanks and troop transports" – he nodded to the stolen vehicles – "we should be back in no time."

* * *

In Milan after a whole day of performing, Alice got a phone call at her hotel from one of her friends in Salzburg, the one watching the HYDRA supply center.

"Alice, I've got no idea what's happening but something big must have happened at that… that _place _you were having me keep an eye on. There's been no trucks at the warehouse in two days, they've never gone that long without a delivery, and the local prison's suddenly full to bursting with HYDRA soldiers that the Wehrmacht found trying to hide in the mountains."

"That's… strange," Alice murmured. She scratched her cheek. _Maybe they had an uprising within their ranks? Maybe a mechanical error that led to the base being shut down? Maybe the Germans have been better able to fight them than I thought._ She said none of this, however. "Thank you, Lille, let me know if you spot anything else out of the ordinary."

"This whole place is out of the ordinary," came Lille's dry voice.

"Now isn't that the truth," Alice sighed. She farewelled her friend then hung up the phone, and thought about the quickest way she could get this news back to the SSR.

* * *

Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Veteran Sergeant John Jackson of the 107th Infantry Regiment, interviewed 10 April 1980:

_"... I was at that camp when they returned back from behind the front lines, you know. Sitting there, feeling sorry for myself because I was pretty sure what was left of the regiment was going to be split up into different divisions since there was so few of us. Then they arrived like... like a mirage. The whole lot of 'em, with Captain Rogers and his team with him._

_They looked like the perfect team. When I found out a few days later that they'd all only just met each other I didn't believe it at first. They looked rough, sure - Sergeant Barnes especially, I knew him before we lost him at Azzano and I was used to him being the jokester of the lot, but he'd clearly been through hell. Had bruises under his eyes and he'd lost weight. The others were pretty beat up too. But we'd never expected to see them alive ever again, and there they all were. With Captain Rogers looking like he'd just gone for a walk in the woods."_

* * *

By the time Alice and Otto figured out a courier to Azzano, they got word that the SSR had up and left Italy. Agent Homer and Agent Badger were to continue on as planned, and meet their handler in Switzerland later on in the month. It was all very vague, but Alice got the sense that something momentous had happened.

* * *

Excerpt from _Debriefing Notes November 4 1943:_ _Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes. (Transcribed by Private Lorraine_ _Williams_] Documented at SSR Italian Encampment, Colonel's Office Quarters. [NOTE: CLASSIFIED]. Archived by Catherine Laurey, SHIELD Archivist:

_Sgt. JBB: Eleven days after we arrived at the facility, I was picked out by Doctor Zola and taken to the isolation area of the facility. He performed various experiments on me-_

_Col. CP: What kind of experiments?_

_Sgt. JBB: I'm afraid I couldn't say, sir. I was sick, see, and... don't know much about that sort of thing._

_Agt. MEC: Could you describe-_

_Sgt. JBB: My memory's not too hot._

_Col. CP: Besides, Carter, Zola obviously hasn't recreated Rebirth, look at the kid-_

_Agt. MEC: Colonel, that's classified information-_

_Col. CP: He's best friends with Rogers, so I imagine he probably already knows all about Rebirth by now. Isn't that right, son?  
_

_Sgt. JBB: [pause] Yes sir._

_Col. CP: And?_

_Sgt. JBB: And what?  
_

_Col. CP: Never mind. Tell us more about the machines you were working on while you were in the factory itself._

* * *

Steve was supposed to report straight to the Cabinet War Rooms in Whitehall the moment he arrived in London, but instead he and Bucky stole away to a coffee shop near the Thames to come clean.

Steve finally admitted to his friend all that he'd been up to since Bucky last saw him, and Bucky told him about his time with HYDRA. Steve noticed that Bucky skimmed over his description of what he'd gone through in the isolation area of the factory. Bucky didn't get as angry as Steve thought he would about the whole Project Rebirth thing, though he did clench his jaw and _stare _at him.

Steve managed to make Bucky laugh with his stories about his time on tour, though, and the lightness after the past few days made them both sag with relief. Steve leaned back in his precariously fragile wicker seat and allowed his gaze to drift. London was colder than Italy, with a chill bite wafting off the Thames. Everything around them was _damp. _Peggy had warned them about that.

"Who'd have figured we'd both end up here?" Bucky said, sounding far away. He spun his coffee mug in his hands.

"Especially looking like this."

"Don't look at me, pal, you're the one sitting there the size of Charles Atlas."

Steve snorted. Bucky kept shooting him funny looks out of the corner of his eye, as if constantly surprised by his appearance. Bucky had known him the longest as his short, skinny self, so he supposed it would be an adjustment. Hell, Steve still sometimes jumped when he saw himself in the mirror.

Bucky's gaze drifted away again, dark. His bruises had already faded and he looked almost back to his old self physically, but… his _eyes _were different. Steve had never seen Bucky look so haunted before.

"Have you heard anything more about… Alice?" Bucky eventually grit out.

Steve's eyebrows rose even as his stomach fell. "No, I… they don't report much on the Siren in the States."

"I heard her."

"What?"

"On the radio in Italy. She was there. On the other side, singin' for the troops." The resentment in his voice made the words painfully sour.

Steve's gaze dropped. The thought of him and Alice standing on stages on either side of the battlefront made his heart clench painfully in his chest. He just wanted to look her in the eyes and ask _why._

"Do the SSR know about her?" Bucky asked.

Steve glanced up. "What? No."

"You should ask 'em to look into her. They're good with finding things out, they might… they might help us understand."

He shook his head. "What would I say? 'Hey, my best friend's a Nazi and I want you to find out why?'" The words spilling from his mouth physically jarred him and he almost snapped his teeth down on his tongue. He'd never said _that _out loud before.

Bucky's hard gaze softened. "Best friend?" he murmured. And it wasn't jealousy or admonishment. It was a tone that said _we both know she was more than that._

A long silence passed. A troop of soldiers marched past, and the girls at the other table outside the coffee shop laughed under their breath.

"You're right," Bucky eventually said as he crossed his arms. "No point bringing all that lot into it. We… maybe one day we'll be able to ask her ourselves."

The thought of seeing her again felt far too painful. Steve had to squeeze his eyes shut. When he opened them again, it was because Bucky had stood up and set his hand on his shoulder.

"C'mon, punk. There's a whole office full of people waiting to talk to you. Turns out you're kind of an important guy now."

Steve heaved to his feet, taller than Bucky now – _still weird _– and dropped his arm around his friend's shoulders. "Jerk."

* * *

After meeting with Peggy and Phillips in the underground Cabinet War Rooms (he'd recreated the HYDRA map he'd seen at the base, they'd greenlit his tactical team idea, and in the meantime were reaching out to their intelligence network for more information about HYDRA's bases), Steve made his way to the Whip & Fiddle pub.

He hoped that Bucky'd been able to track down each of the men Steve had asked him to – he didn't think it would be difficult, half the rescued POWs were probably in this pub of their own free will.

On the march away from the HYDRA base, five men had come to Steve's attention. Four of them he'd spoken with in the base, the same who'd been locked up with Bucky for most of the time, and the fifth, Jim Morita, had only met them all that night. These men had proved the most useful on the slog out of Austria and back to Italy – they weren't all necessarily highly ranked in their respective armies, but when push had come to shove they were the ones throwing themselves into danger and leading the tired, injured POWs back to safety.

Steve had chatted with each of them individually and as a group, and he had to say he _liked _them. One on one he noticed all their skills.

The most senior of all of them (Steve included), Major Falsworth, hid the mind of an expert tactician under a generally affable demeanor – he'd seen them through the worst of the Austrian wilds.

Private Gabe Jones and Jacques Dernier had formed a fast friendship (mostly since Gabe was the only one who could speak fluent French and didn't crack jokes about French people all the time). Gabe was one of the smartest of the lot, spoke English, French and German pretty fluently as far as Steve could tell, and was quick as a whip when it came to hardware. Dernier wasn't Army at all, he'd been in the French Resistance since 1940 and had a frightening knowledge of explosives.

Jim Morita was quietest, but Steve didn't let volume distract him: Morita was a crack shot and didn't blink in the face of danger. They'd come up against some resistance on their way back through Italy, and Morita had been the first to react. He also spoke English and Japanese, and if Steve was being honest, they'd need his level-headedness.

Dum-Dum Dugan was the loudest and the craziest of the lot of them, and he didn't necessarily bring any skills that the rest of them didn't have (they were all incredible marksmen), but for some reason Steve just didn't see it working without him.

Each man rightfully held his own, each a highly trained survivor who knew his way around a gun and didn't need a leader's orders to get things done. But when they were all together it just _worked._ Steve had noticed as much on the march back to camp.

None of them were bullies, either. Dugan talked a lot of shit but he never kicked someone when they were down.

Thankfully, blowing up a whole HYDRA base went a long way when it came to pulling strings with troop reassignment. And so Steve found himself the brand new leader of a brand new unit, the 107th Tactical Team.

Steve pushed open to the pub and sure enough, all five men sat around a table in the busy, smokey space, raising pints with a cheer as Bucky laughed at them.

Steve squared his shoulders.

_Now, to convince these guys to do something completely crazy._

He had a good feeling about it.

* * *

Steve had been so busy trying to get the guys all in one place that he realized he'd completely forgotten to ask Bucky if he was coming along too. So he asked.

Of course, Bucky said yes. He looked tired and he wasn't charming the room like he used to in Brooklyn, but he said yes. For a moment Steve considered protesting – Bucky'd been through hell under HYDRA, he had more than earned a trip back home to his sisters. But under the teasing glint in Bucky's eyes as he ribbed him about the uniform, Steve saw determination.

Of course he'd said yes. Bucky wanted to tear these guys to the ground just as much as Steve did.

* * *

When Peggy walked into the bar she wasn't quiet, and she didn't blend in. She marched right through those doors in a vivid red dress that silenced everyone who saw her.

Bucky turned on the charm, and she didn't even _look _at him. There was only one other person who'd – _no._

"Well what are we waiting for?"

"The right partner."

Steve barely spoke, stunned into silence by the sight of her while simultaneously trying to swallow his nerves.

Wasn't this what Bucky had been trying so hard to push him into looking for, for months? He ignored the stab of pain at the thought. Shouldn't he at least try to open up some kind of a future with someone he could be happy with?

Maybe.

"Yes ma'am," Steve replied once she gave him his reporting hours for tomorrow. "I'll be there."

* * *

Peggy strode right back out of the bar with a smile on her face.

She thought back to a dimly lit safehouse, and cloth stained with blood.

_How do you keep up close relationships, with all your secrets?_

At the time Peggy hardly had an answer for Alice. _I don't, really. I haven't a lot of time for family or friends – what with my work. And I often struggle to find an equal. __But. The war will end one way or another and then life shall go on._

Peggy still remembered the almost ancient look in Alice's eyes. _I hope you're right._

One day this _would _be all over. And one of Peggy's first orders of business would be to make life as normal as possible for her, and for Alice. Both of them deserved it.

She rolled this thought over in her mind like a marble as she strode the quiet London streets. But then she returned to the underground SSR offices and found it in uproar because Howard Stark had managed to blow up his lab, and all thoughts of life after the war dissolved like mist in sunlight.

* * *

Steve didn't get much sleep, too busy thinking about the changes he'd been through, the war ahead of him and that painful realization he'd made at the pub: that for the first time truly since he was sixteen, he was unattached.

The next day he reported to the SSR offices, tried out a flicker of flirtation with Phillips's secretary and got kissed behind the file boxes for his efforts. Peggy snapped at him and shot him the dirtiest glare he'd seen in a long while. It didn't help with the deep upwelling of guilt that roiled in his gut since he'd first even begun flirting with the woman. _It shouldn't matter_, he told himself. _You haven't betrayed anyone._

Well, he supposed he ought to feel guilty about Peggy. But she needled him about being a soldier just like all the rest of them until he finally pushed back and asked about her and Stark, and she _rolled her eyes at him._

"You still don't know a _bloody _thing about women."

Well. Steve supposed she wasn't wrong.

Then Stark showed him around the labs and Steve got a shield made of something called Vibranium. It was a gorgeous piece of metal, a silvery grey disc which he itched to draw.

Then Peggy shot him.

It had been a big day, and it was only nine in the morning.

* * *

Excerpt from Oral History Interview with former SSR Agent and Sergeant William Gladwell, interviewed February 8 1975:

[_laughs] "I knew you'd ask something like that, that's what it always seems to come down to, doesn't it? Who was the man behind the mask? Well I'm afraid I can't tell you much, like I said, I never worked directly with the Captain. But I always suspected he had a sweetheart, y'know. Who do I think it was? Oh, I'd always thought it might've been Agent Carter. Just had a feeling."_

* * *

Alice returned to Berlin to find the mood had soured after more fallbacks in Italy and the East – the Russians had recaptured Kiev and the Wehrmacht had been forced to pull back the defensive line in Italy. Alice performed a few _Lieder-Abende _[_song evenings_] to morose audiences of German leaders.

And in the meantime, she and Otto tried to figure out who might have information about HYDRA. They still weren't sure what had happened to the base in Austria, but Peggy's last orders were to find out more about HYDRA's weaponry, so they intended to carry out orders. They had a meeting with her in Switzerland later in the month.

It was one of their informants who told them that there might be HYDRA manufacturing documents somewhere in Berlin. Apparently, back when HYDRA had still been collaborating with the Nazis, the Nazis had got their hands on some information about HYDRA's work (partly from a voluntary exchange of documents, and partly from Nazi spies). For four days, Alice, Otto and their allies followed hundreds of paperwork leads: the whole Nazi government was a massive bureaucratic machine, one just had to follow the threads.

During an air raid one night, Alice spent a few hours in the bomb shelter with a Reich Main Security Office accessions list, a headache blooming behind her eyes as she cross-referenced item lists while the distant _booms _made the ceiling quiver. The raid that night ended up killing a hundred Berliners, but did not do much damage to buildings or military infrastructure.

Otto figured it out in the end. It turned out that the HYDRA documents may have mistakenly ended up at the Patent Office in Berlin. They shouldn't be there at all, they were far too confidential, but the convoluted paper trail seemed to end there. And it seemed that no one else apart from Otto and Alice had realized it. The Patent Office had been a mess since before the war, after all, since the Nazis stripped patents from all non-Aryans. It stood to reason that they'd let a few documents slip here and there.

So they'd figured out where the files might be. They even knew the very file cabinet. But that file cabinet still happened to be locked up in a very populous government building in the middle of Berlin, and it wasn't like the Siren was being regularly asked to perform at the Patent Office. The SSR had never bothered to place any agents there and they didn't have time to wait.

But then, as if by fate, an invitation arrived: not to the Patent Office, but to an evening function at a restaurant on the canal just ten minute's walk away from the building. Otto didn't like the plan Alice came up with. But he ended up giving into it anyway – he didn't have any better ideas.

The night came: a warm restaurant with wide windows overlooking the river which gleamed gold with reflected lights, the hot press of handshakes and bumping elbows at the table, speeches and laughter. A production company had booked out the restaurant for a fundraising dinner with about eighty patrons who took advantage of the free alcohol. Rationing had made it a valuable commodity.

Alice had declined to perform before accepting the invitation – _terrible head cold, so sorry _– but in reality just didn't want to draw too much attention to herself. As the dinner plates were cleared away and everyone stood up to mingle she shared a glance with Otto and then just… slipped away.

It was easy enough to pull on her winter coat and warm hat over her evening gown in the bathroom, then slip out the staff exit while everyone was busy toasting the production company's CEO. No one saw her leave.

Outside, she blended in with the evening foot traffic along the canal. As she crossed the bridge, shivering at the chill breeze, she walked past a paperstand closing up shop for the night and the vendor offered her a free paper. One of the headlines read: _CAPTAIN AMERICA MACHT MIT NIEDERLANDS RAID EINEN NUISANCE_ [_CAPTAIN AMERICA CREATES NUISANCE IN NETHERLANDS RAID_]. Alice frowned for a moment (she'd thought Captain America was a USO performance in the States) but then waved off the man politely.

Her patent leather shoes clipped on the cobblestones as she walked along the canal and then crossed the main road to look up at the German Patent and Trade Mark Office. For all that it was a fairly dry government department, it lived in a grand old building made of sandstone bricks and wide glass windows, taking up a whole city block. Thankfully, that meant it had lots of entrances.

Under the dim glow of the streetlights Alice circled around to the back of the building, her hands in her pockets and her chin ducked into her coat. Finally she found the shadowiest, quietest door and waited until she couldn't see anyone else on the street. The door was locked, and for a few moments she struggled against it with a hairpin. But the lock was made of strong stuff, and eventually she conceded defeat. She'd already been gone about ten minutes and she needed to hurry.

She turned to the nearest ground-level window, slid her longest hairpin into where the edge met the frame, and levered and pushed until the hinge snapped. _No one thinks to reinforce the hinge as well as the lock, _she recalled Peggy telling her. She carefully lowered the windowframe into the bushes below the window, and then with one last glance over her shoulder she pulled herself up onto the ledge and plunged into the building beyond.

She fell in an ungainly pile on the other side, tangled in her coat and gown for a moment before she struggled to her feet and peered into the darkness. The Patent Office had closed hours ago. After a moment to recall Otto's diagrams, she oriented herself. She reached into her purse for her flashlight and set off into the dark warren of the building.

The Patent Office was a big place, pretty much four massive floors full of nothing but paperwork. Searching for a single file should have been like finding a needle in a haystack. _More like finding a piece of paper in a paperstack_, Alice reflected as she winced at the creaking hinge of an office door. But she wasn't worried. Otto was good with bureaucracy and paper trails, and soon enough she'd found the right room and the right cabinet.

From what she'd seen in the gloom the Patent Office building was tidy and well kept, each room an identical layout of cabinets and desks. But she could tell that this room was more disused: a faint layer of dust clung to the cabinets, and the workspaces were tidy in a way which meant that no one used them regularly. No one bothered with this room very often, clearly. The windows had drapes over them, but Alice still kept her flashlight pointed down to avoid being spotted from outside. The room had absorbed the chill from the night air and stored the cold in the stone walls.

The cabinet wasn't even _locked._ She slid open two drawers before she found the right one, and fished out a file: _XF-H14563. _She kept her ears trained for any sounds in the abandoned building as she laid the file on the nearest workspace and flipped it open.

Her heart skipped. There, in thick black ink, lay the HYDRA skull-and-tentacles logo. _Well done Otto._

She reached into her purse and pulled out her Rolleiflex TLR camera; a tall, double-lensed metal and glass device covered in a hardy leather skin, remarkably small at six inches tall and just under two pounds. It had cost her, but the Gestapo wouldn't bat an eye at a young starlet obsessed with her own image owning a camera. To make sure of it she carried a small folio of developed photos to prove her love of photography: landscape shots from her travels and portraits of backup singers and actors.

Of course, if someone caught her with a camera _inside the Patent Office at night_, she'd have a trickier time explaining that.

Alice removed the lens cap and after carefully positioning her flashlight snapped a photo of the first page. She turned the page, then turned the lever on the side of the camera to roll the film. She only had twelve photos per roll of film, but she had extra rolls in her purse disguised in lipstick cartridges.

She went through a few rolls as she photographed the HYDRA file, skimming through as she read. Her lips pursed. She didn't know a lot about engineering beyond what the inside of a radio looked like, but she understood enough from these blueprints and reports to know that this was _bad. _And if HYDRA had gone rogue… no wonder the SSR were so worried.

She skimmed past dozens of designs: weapons, vehicles, tanks, armor. At the bottom of one of the blueprints she saw a handwritten note in German: _Research Facility #7 may have resources necessary for these parts. _This note was followed by a list of what looked like place names and possibly manufacturing companies, but not in German. She recognized French, but also… Dutch?

Her brow furrowed and she continued leafing through the file. Her heart pounded. The Nazis didn't even know they _had _this.

Once she'd photographed each page she returned the file exactly to where she'd found it, careful not to disturb the dust on the cabinet. She slid the film rolls back into her lipstick cartridges, returned the camera to her bag, and then slipped out of the room. Her mind was already on her route back to the restaurant, and trying to calculate how long she'd been gone. She took one step into the stairwell when an ear-piercing siren split the air.

Alice nearly jumped out of her skin. Instantly she thought of escape routes, hiding places, combat. She probably couldn't make it back to the restaurant if they were looking for her-

But half a second later she realized that it wasn't just one siren she could hear, but many. And it wasn't a Gestapo or a burglar siren. Her ears rang with the sound of a high, insistent blare that wound up and down in volume. In the distance, she heard bells start to toll.

_The air raid sirens._

They'd been going off more often since the first raid on the city three years ago, but they were still infrequent. There'd only been nine alerts the whole of last year, and there'd been a raid only four days ago, surely the planes weren't back _already_?

But then, as she hesitated at the top of the stairs, Alice heard a bone-rattling _boom._

Her heart dropped. _They're back._

She ran down the stairs and along the darkened main corridor of the Patent Office, back to the room she'd broken into. She still made sure to close all the doors behind her. Once she burst into the room she hoisted herself onto the window ledge and scrambled outside into pandemonium.

As she jogged back onto the street her eyes first caught on the lights: two massive searchlights strafing across the sky from the Flak tower, which she knew had been built over at Berlin zoo. She followed one of the piercing beams as it caught the flat green darkness of a trio of planes flashing overhead. The anti-aircraft guns started up, a shockingly loud rattle in the night. The projectiles looked like flashing white streaks arcing up into the sky.

Alice tore her eyes away from the searchlights and looked directly up. A black silhouette whisked over the stars above her. Her skin prickled. Then she saw similar flashes of blackness cutting overhead. Dozens. Hundreds. Seconds later she heard the high drone of plane engines. Two more _booms _went off in close succession, and the ground beneath her feet shuddered. _I need to move._

She started jogging back the way she'd come, feeling strangely disconnected from the rattle of anti-aircraft fire and the whining plane engines. Just a moment ago she'd been creeping through a darkened building, snapping photographs of HYDRA files. That had been her plan for the evening. This felt… it felt like it was happening to someone else.

A third _boom _landed, much louder, and her head snapped around to see a fireball erupt a few blocks away. Screams echoed, and Alice's eyes widened as she saw flames lick up into the night sky. She increased her speed, but then flinched at a high whistle and a _blast_, much closer now, and started sprinting.

Alice knew there was an air raid shelter at the U-Bahn station by the canal. She clearly wasn't alone in the thought – when she ran out on to the main road she found the street full of running, screaming people, dashing for the canal. Alice got a general impression of terrified eyes and upturned faces before the streetlights went out.

Another _boom _and a shudder erupted, and Alice heard the hiss of water flung up from the canal. In the distance ahead she could see the searchlights beaming out of the zoo Flak tower, and the steady stream of anti-aircraft fire. She knew that the tower was probably entirely manned by teenagers from the Hitler Youth, trying to bring down the bombers. She wondered, bizarrely, what their parents must be thinking right now.

Her breath rasped in her throat.

The ground shuddered again. There was a blast every second now, and the darkness imposed by the dead streetlights started to recede as flames hungrily claimed the night air. One of the search lights flashed overhead as Alice ran down the road, illuminating a dozen dark shapes plummeting through the sky.

Her fine shoes slapped on the pavement as she ran, and the cold air sliced into her lungs. She heard an engine growl overhead so close that it sounded like it was about to clip her head off, so she instinctively threw her hands over her head and ducked.

She kept her gaze up, though, which is how she saw the metal silhouette of a warhead flash down through the dark air five hundred yards ahead. She blinked, and did not see the bomb impact with the road.

She _did _feel the blast of scalding air and shattered concrete fragments that roared outward, searing her retinas with its bright starburst of flame and flinging her backwards.

Alice tumbled, disoriented, numb from the sensory overload of _bright, loud, sensation._

Alice opened her eyes to see her own pale ash-streaked hand spread on the dark pavement. Liquid ran into her left eye, and she wondered if it had started raining. But she blinked, tasted iron on her lips, and realized she must be bleeding. She wasn't sure if her ears were ringing or if that was the sound of plane engines. The road pressed hard against her body.

She rolled onto her back and sat up with a groan. Her system buzzed with adrenaline, so she didn't feel any pain. Just disorientation.

Her tumble through the air had turned her around, so it took her a moment to figure out where she was. She looked back over her shoulder, in the direction she'd been running, to see a crater in the road. The side of the street had crumbled and spilled sideways into the river, and as she watched, a cascade of bricks splashed into the water. She could see a leg protruding from between two slabs of cracked concrete. On the right, one of the residential buildings had caught on fire.

_I'm not going to make it to the air raid shelter._

Two more explosions lit up to her left, across the canal. The air was deafening with engines, explosions, and anti-aircraft fire. As she got shakily to her feet she saw an orange blossom in the sky, followed a few seconds later by a _boom _that sounded different.

Alice's eyes followed the orange blossom as it pinwheeled down to crash a few miles away, right in the heart of the city. She let out a shuddering breath. The sky was _alive _with light: explosions, flares, gunfire, flames and sweeping searchlights. She'd never seen a night sky so bright.

Another bomb went off, closer, and she took off running again after a shaky start as her ankle threatened to wobble out from under her. She didn't go far this time. She ran down the main road until she found a bombed-out house, its guts spilling onto the road. She could see scorch marks, but the fire had already gone out. Must've been made mostly of concrete or stone. She darted into the ruin, climbing over concrete and cutting her hands on shards of glass.

She forged through until she found a storm door for a basement and twisted it open, revealing a yawning black hole in the ground. The basement below was probably too shallow to be much protection against falling bombs, but anything was better than out here on the street.

Alice clattered down the ladder, catching a glimpse of the empty, damp space before she slammed the door behind her.

Her breath came out as a frightened hiss in the sudden blackness.

* * *

_**~ You don't have to be alone in the dark ~** _

* * *

Alice sat in the darkness for an eternity. Early on she reached for her flashlight with shaking hands, only to find that she must have broken it when she fell. A layer of shattered glass lay at the bottom of her purse. She realized a minute later that she must have smashed her camera as well. She checked the lipstick cartridges with fumbling fingers, panicked, but they seemed to be in one shape.

Then there was nothing left to do but sit, wide-eyed and sightless, and wait. The world shuddered and screamed over her head and she gripped her hair in her hands. She began to feel pain: a sharp throbbing just beside her left eye, which was wet and painful when she touched it. Her jaw ached from where it had hit the road, as well as her shoulder and hip. She felt the sting of dozens of small cuts on the front of her body, where she'd been facing the bomb.

Slowly, the silences between the concussive _booms _grew longer. It didn't sound like the earth was going to tear asunder any more. When she managed to count to three hundred after hearing one lonesome blast, she held her breath, climbed up the basement ladder and twisted open the storm door again.

She'd thought it would be dark, but she climbed out to a strange hellscape: the entire sky glowed a deep, dark red, undulating above her. For a moment she just stared. Then she realized a thick layer of smoke now hung over the city, reflecting the flames below. It looked like the sky was on fire.

Alice climbed out of the bombed-out building and picked her way in the direction of the air raid shelter closest to the restaurant. Bodies lay on the side of the road. Alice watched their chests but saw no sign of movement. She walked past other wanderers like her, pacing wide-eyed and sooty-faced. She wondered if she had tear-streaks running through the ash on her cheeks as well.

She approached the river and found the burning, tangled wreck of a fighter plane hanging off the lip of the bridge. She could still see the RAF logo on the tail. The cockpit was blinding with flame.

Sirens had become the loudest cry across the night air – the air raid sirens were _still _going, but now the more urgent wail of fire engines rose over them. Alice had to jump out of the way of one racing fire engine, which made a beeline for the blazing church a few blocks away.

She didn't realize she'd made it to the U-Bahn air raid shelter until she spotted a man in a Gestapo uniform standing guard over the stairwell. Just an hour ago she'd have been terrified to see a uniform, but now she ran across the road and threw herself into the man's arms.

_Please, officer, I've lost my friends._

She was a frightened, injured socialite. The officer rushed her down the stairwell and toward the waiting medics and the frantic, wild-eyed Otto.

No one thought to check her bag.

The next day, no one batted an eye at the broken window at the Patent Office; just another item for the damage report.

* * *

Excerpt from '_War on Germany: Life Behind the Lines'_ by Helga Simmons (1982), p. 62

_The Battle of Berlin, which stretched from November of 1943 to March of the next year, has come in later years to be seen as an operational failure by historians: the RAF, who led the series of raids, suffered greater losses of planes than the Luftwaffe and failed to gain any major German concessions. That being said, the battle itself was devastating for Berlin. The first raid was relatively minor due to unfavorable weather, but the second raid on the night of the 22nd of November utterly destroyed a great swathe of Berlin and caused several firestorms, killed over 2000 people and left 175,000 more homeless. The opera house and zoo were destroyed._

_... among prominent individuals affected by the RAF campaign were... the Siren, who some primary sources indicate was at a social function that even and suffered minor injuries. This is interesting, because..._

* * *

A week later Alice sat in the dressing room of her regular performance hall in Zürich, wiping away her stage makeup as Otto leaned against the far wall and watched her through the mirror.

The monthly performance had gone off as well as ever. They usually brought their backup singers but it was getting harder to convince the neutral Swiss to let the Siren into the country to perform, let alone a whole pro-Nazi retinue, so Alice had sung alone tonight. Thankfully Otto continued to work his magic and their performance slot was safe.

So it was just the two of them in the dressing room, hanging back late as they usually did. The room was warm and brightly lit, but the mood was somber. Otto watched Alice run a damp cloth over her face, revealing her still-fresh cuts and bruises, and his brow furrowed. Neither of them spoke.

The Propaganda Department had, surprisingly, offered Alice some time off after the RAF bombing to heal, but she had refused them. _Our soldiers are out there working tirelessly to win this war, _she told them. _I've got no right to do any differently._

She'd suffered through an endless influx of visitors, flowers, and cards, even one from Adolf Hitler's office. The sympathy was almost worse than her actual injuries. _Almost _worse than the way she still flinched at loud noises. _Almost _worse than the fact that she couldn't sleep without the light on any more because in the darkness she would wake up terrified that she was back in that storm cellar.

Peggy Carter slipped into the dressing room so easily that it took Alice a second glance to fully register that she was there.

"Peggy," Alice smiled as she turned on her chair, feeling tension release from her spine.

"Hello my dears," Peggy said, her eyes glinting from Alice to Otto. She wore a concierge uniform this time. "Wonderful to see you. I have good news, so-" she paused abruptly.

Alice tensed. "What?" Peggy's eyes were fixed, suddenly hard, so Alice glanced to Otto. He looked first confused, then resigned. Alice looked back to Peggy to find her staring unwaveringly at Alice's face. _Oh._

She'd removed most of her makeup, so her injuries were plain. The worst was the nasty gash right beside her eye. Shrapnel of some kind had sliced into the corner of her eyelid and curved up over the ridge of bone beside her eye. If it had hit just slightly to the right she'd have lost her eye. A purple bruise peeked up over the tip of her jaw, and even in her performance getup there were cuts from shrapnel visible on her arms and chest. Her left hand was still bandaged – it had taken a medic pointing it out for Alice to notice, but at some point that frightening night Alice had ended up with a shard of glass lodged in her palm.

Peggy's voice came low and hard. "What happened." But she didn't allow time for Alice to answer before she turned on Otto. "What _happened_, and why didn't you report this to me?"

Otto still leaned against the wall, but his face turned hard to match Peggy's. He didn't look afraid. Not like he'd been afraid when he saw Alice brought down to the air raid shelter covered in blood and ash. Alice didn't think she'd forget how he looked that night.

"It happened recently," Otto said in a low voice. "We wanted to be safe and wait until today to let you know-"

"Agent Badger," Peggy replied crisply, "if _any _SSR operatives are in danger I want to hear about it-"

"I was in Berlin," Alice cut in. Peggy turned to her. "On Monday."

After a beat of silence, Peggy's eyes widened. Horror bled into her rigid anger. "_Alice._" She paced across the room and unconsciously reached out before pulling her hand back. Her fingers curled. "I'm so sorry. If I could have warned you-"

"No," Alice said, shaking her head. "That's the last thing I want to know. I'm meant to be getting intelligence _for _you, not from you. I know where the air raid shelters are. I'll be fine."

At the far wall, Otto let out a slow breath through his nose.

Alice kept her expression calm.

_Two thousand people dead. Tens of thousands of others without homes. _Alice had returned to her apartment the next morning to find the windows had imploded inward, but otherwise the building had suffered no structural damage.

Alice knew that she'd been close (a few hundred yards, in fact) to losing her life.

She _knew _that this happened in war, she'd even seen some of it in Hamburg, but it never failed to surprise her. What this war made people do was _awful. _And those men, women and children who had died that night – she was actively working against them.

Peggy saw the angry, distraught thoughts swirling in Alice's mind and reached out to touch Alice's hand on the dresser. "I know," she murmured. She didn't say anything to try to make it better, or to justify the bombing. She just repeated: "I know."

Alice nodded, her head bowed and wanting to weep at the exhaustion in her limbs. They stayed like that until Alice summoned the strength to lift her head again.

"So," she murmured, swallowing past the lump in her throat. "You… you seemed to be in a good mood when you walked in. What's new?"

For a moment, Peggy hesitated. Alice could feel her dark eyes flicking over her, sizing her up and deciding what she was ready for. But eventually she took a step back so she could address both of them.

"Do you remember that hope I thought the SSR had lost?" Her eyes gleamed. "It turns out I was wrong. The SSR has a whole new focus now, and we're going to hit HYDRA where it hurts. We're going on the offensive."

Alice's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"

Otto pushed off the wall. "This has something to do with that Austrian base, doesn't it?"

Peggy nodded. "I can't tell you most of it, to keep you safe, but we've got a heavy hitter now."

"So how do you want us to help?" Alice asked.

Peggy smiled: a red-lipped, dangerous smile. "I want you to point the way."

Alice felt her own lips curve to match Peggy's smile. "You got it."

Peggy's smile warmed. "So do you two have anything for me?"

Otto and Alice exchanged a glance and then both looked toward the small satchel bag on the edge of the dressing room table, which contained not only the intact lipstick cartridges packed with film roll, but everything else they'd been able to steal and learn over the past month.

"Yes," Alice replied evenly. "We might have one or two things."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovelies, I hope you're all safe and healthy. Quick update: as some of you know, I'm Australian but currently living in Japan. Well, very unfortunately and upsettingly I have had to pack up my house and things, sell it all and my car, in the hopes of getting back to Australia before there are no more flights. I'm okay (if a little heartsore at having to so suddenly leave the place and people I love), currently sitting in the airport in Tokyo before my flight back to Australia. Editing this chapter has been a wonderful distraction, and I'm sorry it was late - this past week I've barely had time to eat, let alone write! Sending lots of love x


	38. Chapter Twenty Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I write to you from government-enforced quarantine, my dears… in a 5 star hotel! For free! (Guarded by the army and police). This week is going much better than last.
> 
> Oh also, quick note on the 'tactical team' thing, apparently it's MCU canon that the name "Howling Commandos" didn't come into use until after the war, so Steve and his pals would not have been calling themselves that. So the 107th Tactical Team it is.

**Circe to Odysseus** _** (The Odyssey, Homer): When your rowers have passed the Sirens, two roads will be offered to you.** _

* * *

Peggy returned to London an hour after Steve and his 107th Tactical Team did – they'd just scored an impressive victory in Italy, pushing back the HYDRA front lines and recapturing a town the science division had been using for labor. But Peggy didn't go straight to the SSR underground offices in Whitehall like they had. She instead went to the SSR photography department, waited for Alice's film rolls to develop, then made her way to Whitehall.

As she strode down the steps into the yellow-lit underground offices she spotted the tactical team immediately: they sat around the large planning table at the far end of the cramped space with Colonel Phillips and Howard. From their weary, slouched postures she guessed they'd already given their official briefing. Colonel Phillips was shaking a map at Howard.

Peggy strode across the room toward them. "Back for a little R&R, boys?"

The men all glanced over, and Steve jumped to his feet. "Agent Carter," he said respectfully. Maybe a little nervously. It hadn't been long since she'd shot at him.

"Captain Rogers."

The men of his team also stood to greet her, if a little reluctantly. She nodded in return.

"Not so much R&R, no," Steve answered her original question. "We're not back for long."

Phillips flapped the map at her. "Sit down, Agent Carter, we're discussing our next steps in Italy. The Allies have stalled, HYDRA is everywhere and we have no idea where their base is, and the Wehrmacht are a bunch of stubborn bastards."

"In a moment." Peggy pulled the satchel off her shoulder and set it on the edge of the table. From under her other arm she pulled the folder from the photography department. As she opened the folder and began sliding out photographs, the men around the table leaned forward.

Peggy met Phillips' eyes. "Agent Homer has provided these blueprints about the machinery HYDRA has been using, as well as a clue about another potential HYDRA base." She spread the photographs out in order, exposing the blueprints to the yellow office light and the eyes of the men around her.

"Agent Homer?" queried Steve, as he frowned down at the blueprints.

"One of our informants in the field," Peggy explained. "Here." She finished laying out the blueprints. Howard had initially not paid much attention, but at the sight of machinery designs his hand darted out. Peggy shot him a _look_ and he retreated, but not far. His eyes were glued to the photographs.

"Here," Peggy pointed, "on the bottom of the third page, this handwritten note."

Steve and his men all craned forward, but frowned at the unfamiliar language. Private Gabriel Jones set his elbows on the table and scrutinized the writing. "_Die Forschungseinrichtung Nr. 7 verfügt möglicherweise über Ressourcen, die für diese Teile erforderlich sind_," he read. "Er... 'Research Facility #7 may have resources necessary for these parts'."

Sergeant Barnes scowled. "That's Zola's writing."

A pause fell. Peggy saw the storm brewing on Barnes's face, and the chill of hatred that stole over the rest of the men. Steve shifted closer to his friend, as if to protect him.

Jones glanced up at his Sergeant, as if to check on him, then slowly turned back to the rest of the writing. "And then under that, this is… French? No – German as well?"

"Dutch," Peggy corrected. "Our agent had a look and says that these are all names of places and companies in Belgium. If we cross reference, we may be able to pin down the facility location."

Stark had started sliding blueprints towards himself, eyes flickering over the designs of firearms, vehicles, and engines. "This is good stuff, with this information I should be able to figure out how to counteract some of their weaponry. I can't recreate it, not without their power source, but…" He held up a blueprint of the HYDRA Uber Tank, his eyes wide, before dropping it to turn to designs for the HYDRA armor. "How did your man get this stuff?" he asked distractedly.

Peggy ignored him. "Colonel Phillips, Agent Badger also provided some more up-to-date information about the Wehrmacht movements around the Winter Line over the next few weeks. I think we had better adjust some of our plans."

Phillips looked annoyed, but he nodded. "Alright then. Rogers, you lot, let's go draw up some battle plans at the map table. We'll leave Stark to his new present."

The men got to their feet with variously loud groans and followed Phillips across the room. Peggy stood a moment later. She'd wanted to impress the value of this information on them all – had been half a second away from saying _these blueprints almost cost my agent her life_. But that would be… unnecessary. Sentimental. Worse, any information she gave out about Alice increased the potential for exposure.

Peggy shook her head and followed the soldiers across the room. _One day, I'll make sure they all know her name._

* * *

Excerpt from '_The Scientific Reserve_' by Laurence Davies (1951), p. 12

_From the beginning, the Strategic Scientific Reserve were friendly (and if not friendly, at least cooperative) with foreign allies: early on they brought in Agent Margaret Carter from the British MI5, made rescuing German scientist Abraham Erskine a priority, and forged multiple other international connections. This served the organisation well in the war, and gave them inroads into occupied Europe._

_This author can also reveal that there is significant evidence that the Reserve had Germans working as spies for them. This theory will be extrapolated upon in the coming chapters, but it is plain from the outset, given the benefit of hindsight, that the SSR must have had double agents working for them. There is no other way they could have uncovered such a level of intelligence about HYDRA and the secret workings of the war. This publication will also put forward several theories for the identity of the SSR's undercover man._

* * *

Alice and Otto returned to Italy under Peggy's request (and after convincing the Propaganda Department that the German troops in Italy would really benefit from a pick-me-up). So the Siren and her backup singers returned to the country once more, travelling across the northern half of the country from the Austrian border to the front lines. Alice frequently spent time in Florence to record a Christmas record for Otto's production company.

Alice performed the same stage circuit (give or take a few miles of battleground lost), but her work with the SSR had changed overnight. Peggy had encouraged Alice and Otto to stop focusing so much on where the armies were, but on where HYDRA was – this kind of intel was practically in-actionable before, since there wasn't much the SSR could do about it if HYDRA was deep in German territory.

But Peggy hadn't been kidding about their new 'heavy hitter'. They first discovered this when Otto overheard some information about a HYDRA-occupied village on the west coast in Axis territory, they passed it on, and a week later HYDRA had fled from the area. Alice and Otto never got the details. Beforehand, HYDRA had been pretty much safe. They had much more resources than anyone else, and easily held onto their territory whether it was surrounded by Axis or Allied forces. Hell, no one but the SSR was even that worried about them. To everyone else, HYDRA was a bizarre cult to be dealt with later.

But now, Alice and Otto didn't have to worry about their intelligence being useless. They forged together every scrap of information and rumor they could, encouraged by Peggy's profuse reassurances that the SSR could work with whatever they came up with.

Alice wondered if they had come up with a weapon strong enough to counteract HYDRA's eerie blue weaponry. She knew they had Howard Stark on their side, perhaps he'd come up with the key. Whatever it was, she intended to keep _pointing the way._

Not that her focus turned solely to HYDRA. Alice found herself mostly in the company of Nazi soldiers and generals; an endless whirl of performances, meet-and-greets, and social functions. There weren't quite as many parties in occupied Italy as in Berlin, but the German top brass still wanted their luxuries. She spent evenings soaked in the smell of dark wine and rich coffee, marveling at the fine Italian dishes which she could have only dreamed about in Brooklyn.

On the other side of the coin, 'Al' slipped through the cobbled, ancient streets of Rome and Florence or stole through country towns, coordinating with the Italian resistance and mutinous civilians. Their connections weren't quite as strong in Italy as in France, Germany, and Austria, but the Italian people were sick of the war and the Nazis. It didn't take much for them to talk.

In amongst the performances, costume fittings, and interviews Alice also occasionally heard about 'Captain America' – but in a much different light. It didn't seem like it was all propaganda now. The German papers spoke about him as a nuisance. The Allies must have been inspired by the propaganda show, dressed up a soldier and sent him into battle. She got scraps of information from the papers and from disgruntled soldiers, but didn't believe most of it.

She worked on, too busy to be scared and too determined to be tired.

* * *

Excerpt from '_War on Italy: 1943-1945'_ by Kate Higgins (1994), p. 55:

_The Allied Italian Campaign began in July of 1943, but it did not see a very auspicious start. After the initial Allied invasion of Sicily led to a collapse of the Italian government and the signing of an armistice, German forces reasserted control over northern and central Italy, Mussolini was rescued from imprisonment and reinstated as leader of a new pro-Nazi Italian state, and the Allied leaders prepared for a long-haul fight. One piece of progress was that the government upheaval led to the rise of larger and stronger Italian resistance groups._

_Initial Allied landings in September came up against unexpectedly heavy German resistance and treacherous terrain, and by October the German forces had drawn up a series of strategic defensive lines known collectively as the Winter Line, which stretched across a narrow section of the country from coast to coast, strangling the Allied advance north. This series of defensive lines brought the Allied advance to a grinding halt, so come the end of 1943, it did not appear the Italian campaign was going anywhere._

* * *

When they returned to Italy, Steve and the 107th Tactical Team moved swiftly around the bogged-down, slow moving armies. With the help of the USAAF and the Navy they launched strike raids into northern Italy, miles behind the front lines. HYDRA had taken up territory in and around the main German forces, making them difficult to get to.

They fought swiftly and explosively, slicing through the HYDRA lines before they even realized who was there. But the main base remained elusive.

Orders came from the SSR command in London, but Steve had been given a loose leash – he and his team undertook raids and patrols outside of SSR purview, helping the main Allied forces as they tried to push through the Winter Line in the south of Italy.

The terrain didn't make it easy. Italy was supposed to be a temperate country, but as November turned into December the air became biting and torrential rains doused the battlefields. Most of the fighting was through treacherous mountain ranges and thick forests. Air raids were near constant. Steve quickly got used to the sound of air raid sirens. What's more, the Allied command were prone to hesitation. More than a few soldiers told Steve they were envious of his ability to choose his own targets.

After their initial teething troubles, Steve's team worked together like they'd all known each other for years. Steve was the strategist and the first one onto the battlefield (since he was also their human cannonball), and Bucky was their Sarge – the one who made them all eat and sleep and go to the medic tent. Dugan had also recently been promoted to Sergeant, and he made a reliable third in command even when he was mouthing off.

As the battles wore on, Steve realized he was getting pretty good at giving speeches.

Steve got to know his men in battle and back in camp, over flasks of bottom-shelf liquor and mind-numbing patrols. Gabe came from Georgia but had gone to Howard University, and he liked playing word games in their down time. Dum-Dum had a girl back home in New York, and he talked about her like she'd hung the moon in the sky. Falsworth was married to an aristocrat in Scotland who wrote him letters that made his ears turn pink, and when he thought no one could hear him he whistled tunes to himself.

Dernier helped Steve brush up on his French when they had a spare minute, sang bawdy songs with a vivid grin on his face, and could become almost violent when trying to convince others that France was the best country on Earth.

Morita's parents had been moved to an internment camp in California, and when Steve learned that and started pushing the SSR to have them freed, Morita seized Steve in a hug that might have crushed his bones if he didn't have super serum. Morita drank straight whiskey and couldn't be beaten at cards.

The people of Italy were welcoming enough to the American and British soldiers – partly because they weren't Nazis, and partly because they were more than eager to buy food and other luxuries. Bucky and Steve tried pasta the way it was meant to be eaten, and laughed at how similar it tasted to the kind at the Italian place in Brooklyn. They listened to old men playing guitar on the rubble-strewn streets and watched kids play outside the barracks.

In Europe, it was so much easier to hear news about the Siren. Steve wished he could stop noticing (wished he could stop seeking it out) but he had a sick drive to _know. _He'd hear an Italian mention her name on the street – _La Sirena_ – or see an advertisement for her upcoming Christmas record in an abandoned German newspaper.

Once, when they'd pushed back the German front line a few miles, they walked through the streets of a small town to clear it and Steve had stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of _Alice. _Her face, in black and white, on a paper tacked to a signpost. He ran over, nearly tripping on the shrapnel-pocked road. It was a poster for a performance in this very town; he couldn't understand most of the German but he scanned for numbers and _there_: the date advertised was… last week.

Steve let his gaze drift. He imagined her walking these streets, her voice echoing on the stage he'd spotted on the way into town. He imagined her singing Christmas songs.

The Alice of his imagination shifted from the dark-jacketed, smiling one who'd been with him in Brooklyn, and became an untouchable songstress in a sweeping white dress, her expression haughty and utterly impossible to understand. Steve shivered.

He'd torn the poster off the wall and shoved it into his pocket just as the rest of his team caught up with him.

"What's wrong?" Bucky had asked.

Steve shook his head. "Nothing."

* * *

It often frightened Alice that she seemed to come across her most valuable intelligence by chance – certainly she put herself in positions where she might hear things, but sometimes mere chances of fate brought her vital information.

So when she finished washing her hands in the bathroom of a Florence manor house and then pushed open the door to hear men's voices in the corridor beyond, she paused.

She'd been invited to a large dinner party with many of the top German military men and pro-Nazi Italian socialites. Alice had come without Otto, and after a long evening of mingling and gossiping she'd allowed herself a moment's reprieve in the bathroom. But now…

The voices in the corridor outside the bathroom were low but close, as if the speakers had ducked out of the party together. Alice kept the bathroom door cracked open with her palms and pressed her ear close to the gap.

"… I just wanted to say, sir, that I'm still endeavoring to implant an agent in the SSR but you needn't worry-"

Alice went rigid, her skin prickling.

"Which one's that again?" came a rougher voice. She recognized it: that was General Fischer, one of the highest Wehrmacht leaders in Italy. He let out a rumbling cough.

"The _Strategic Scientific Reserve_, sir. American." Alice placed his voice too – Lieutenant Krause, who was officially a Navy officer but who Alice knew was also a _Sicherheitsdienst _(SS intelligence) agent. "They're more concerned with HYDRA than us, but they're responsible for that new strike team causing strife on the front. The ones who took Chiasto."

"Ah," the General replied with derision. "Well, why didn't we already have an agent handling them?" The voices were fading, as if they were walking back to the party.

"We did, sir, but it seems the agent was HYDRA, so we lost contact with them after the schism. We haven't had any intel from them since September." Alice leaned closer to the door, straining to hear as the voices grew more distant. She could feel her heartbeat in her palms as they pressed against the door.

"Well keep me updated on your progress, you know command's been in contact about…" the words faded into the distant wash of voices, and Alice dropped her forehead against the door.

_I might never have heard that_.

She opened her eyes, staring at the dark wooden door with her palms pressed against it. She let out a long breath. _But I did hear it._

_Why do I keep learning important things in the bathroom?_

She contemplated the idea that this could be a trap. Intelligence officers didn't normally speak so openly about their undercover operatives. But, she realized, this wasn't classified for them any longer. They didn't _have _an undercover operative anymore, it was all hypothetical.

But there still _was _an operative.

Alice straightened, rolled her shoulders back, and then pushed open the bathroom door with a flourish. By the time she'd made it back to the dining room, she had a bright smile on her face and a plan forming in her mind.

* * *

Alice considered, for a moment, keeping her information secret from Otto. For all she knew _he _could be the HYDRA agent. But that thought only lasted a moment. It sounded like the spy was in the main body of the SSR, and if Otto was the spy then she'd be dead in the end anyway. So when they met the next morning for breakfast, she told him everything.

From that moment, they spent six days ruthlessly going after information. They didn't tell anyone else what they'd found out – that was far too dangerous – but they'd perfected the art of learning things without anyone knowing. They traced down dozens of useless leads, asked very carefully worded questions, trawled through pounds and pounds of paperwork. They slept no more than four hours a night.

Alice was the first to get a lead: one of her connections back in Stuttgart had spoken to a drunken _Abwehr_ (German military intelligence) officer, who bragged about how he used to communicate with a HYDRA spy in London. This spy's alias was _Argus._

Days later, Otto found himself left unattended in a German Communications office after being invited for a meeting with the radio officer. He rifled through all the files he could reach, memorizing all kinds of useful facts, before coming across a handwritten transcript of an overheard coded radio communique. Someone had written in the top right hand corner: _HYDRA BROADCAST, LONDON._

Otto copied down the coded message and brought it back to the hotel, where he and Alice stayed up all night working on the fiendishly difficult encryption.

_Finally_, they cracked it: _ARGUSDOVERCASTLE25121500_

"Agent Argus to Dover Castle," Otto surmised, leaning back in his seat as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "On the 25th, which is… next Saturday." He let out a tired sigh.

"At 3PM," Alice finished for him, tapping her fingers restlessly against the scrap of paper. She sat on her haunches on the carpeted hotel floor, her clothes rumpled from her sleepless night and her eyes itching with tiredness. "Otto, that's in…"

"Twelve days," he muttered. "I'm aware."

"We need to tell Peggy." They'd both agreed that she was the only one they'd trust with what they found. They couldn't send it through their regular courier route.

"How?" Otto spread a hand. "We can't exactly radio this one in."

"I know, I know." Alice bit her lip. Dawn light began to creep through the gaps in the curtain. "We'll have to talk to her directly, but our next Switzerland meet isn't for _weeks_. She needs to know about this upcoming meet, it could be the only shot of catching the spy. We could… we could request that she comes here urgently? We've got those Wehrmacht plans-"

"Those plans can wait for the Switzerland meet though-"

"But the SSR doesn't know that," Alice cut him off. "We tell them that we've got extremely time-sensitive plans that need to go to her directly, and once she's here we tell her the real intel."

Otto frowned up at the ceiling. "It's irregular."

"This whole war is irregular. And if the spy at the SSR does hear about this, there's no reason for them to think they've been made."

Otto rubbed his forehead. "I don't know if you noticed, Alice, but spies are paranoid, flighty people. You and I should know." But then he sighed. "It's the best plan we've got, though. I'll set up a telegram to London right away." He got to his feet with a groan. "It's things like this which are making me go bald, Alice."

Alice rolled to her feet, wincing as her back cracked, and leaned over to kiss Otto on the cheek. "We get through this, and the SSR will pin you with enough medals to make a hat."

* * *

In the underground offices at Whitehall, Peggy frowned down at the telegram that had just been delivered to her by a nervous courier.

Phillips, on the other side of the table from her, looked up. "What," he said in the tone of a man expecting to be frustrated.

"Agent Badger and Agent Homer have collected time-sensitive documents that they want to deliver to me personally."

"You'll see them in a few weeks," Phillips dismissed.

"They've said it's _urgent._ They want me to go to Italy right away."

Phillips glowered. "Well, you can't. I need you here for that meeting at the Houses of Parliament on Saturday, and the thing with those RAF bastards next week."

"I know," Peggy said. She didn't take her eyes off the telegram, and the frown didn't leave her face. The language was polite yet firm, phrased as if this were a perfectly ordinary mission request. But Alice and Otto had never done anything like this before. Normally time-sensitive information got radioed back to London under an encryption, or ferried back by their well-established network of couriers. All their other irregular meetings had been called by the SSR, not the other way around. This felt… off. But she knew better than to say so.

She leaned back in her seat and glanced over her shoulder at the wall map of Italy, with its criss-crossing threads of battlefronts and army movements. A circular icon near the center of the map caught her eye.

"You know, I could send someone else in my stead…"

* * *

When Alice and Otto got the encrypted details of their information drop the next day, it sent them into a flurry of work. They had very few details: just a location, a time, and some code phrases and details to ensure mission security.

They began their work with a heated argument. The proposed meet was remote, and would require significant travel and covertness. What's more, Peggy had (unknowingly) set the meet on the same night that Alice had a big performance for a Wehrmacht division at the Winter Line, the same night that the whole tour crew would be travelling back to a hotel in Rome to spend a week's break.

They both knew that Otto couldn't make the meet – he rarely did fieldwork as his knee (which he'd injured on an information drop the year before) acted up if he walked on it too much, and he'd also recently come down with a fever.

So it _should _have been a simple decision – Alice would go – but Otto hated the idea. He argued it was too far, too soon, too dangerous. For the plan to work they'd have to have dozens of moving parts on the go at once, and if just one failed Alice could be hurt or exposed.

Alice, thankfully, had years of practice with stubborn men looking out for her safety, and argued him into submission within twenty minutes. They knew they couldn't trust another soul aside from Peggy with the secret, and Otto's arguments that he _could _make his way to the meet were patently foolish.

Once he had (reluctantly) given in, the hard work began. They had two days to plan for their one chance at warning the SSR of the spy within their ranks, and they had to do it alone.

* * *

Excerpt of a German Wehrmacht Soldier's Diary, 15th December 1943 (On display at the Museum of the Liberation of Rome, 2002) [Translated]:

_Despite the upcoming action, all anyone can seem to talk about is the performance we're having at the camp the day after next. The Siren is coming to the front! Müller has been telling everyone for months that he knew her back in Stuttgart. Of course we all know that he's lying, any idiot can find out that the Siren is from Vienna, but now everyone's been asking him to introduce her to us. The poor fool can't admit defeat._

_But besides that, we are all very much looking forward to the performance! I have been a big fan of the Siren's ever since her work after the Anschluss, and we all saw 'Love and Victory on the Front' earlier this year. She's very pretty on screen, and I'm interested to see her in the flesh. I also hear her backup singers are pretty! My cousin Heiko said when they came to perform for his regiment, one of them kissed him on the cheek._

* * *

Within moments of her last note fading through the makeshift stage's speakers, Alice's audience erupted into applause.

She beamed down at them in the dusk air, and took in a deep breath. Now that her focus on the music had faded she felt the chill of the falling night through her satin dress.

Her audience were all German soldiers, some from the Wehrmacht and some from the Luftwaffe, all in dark green uniforms with swastika sleeves to match the massive flag hanging behind Alice. She'd made them cry tonight – she could still see some eyes shining in the audience.

The first row stood up, and a second later the whole crowd were on their feet, roaring their applause up at the stage. Alice's backup singers ducked into curtseys, smiling and waving, and Alice inclined her head with a wide smile on her face. The darkening air felt electric.

_Zugabe! _[_Encore_!] they cried, slowly working themselves into a chant.

Alice pressed her hands to her chest, blushing, and made a gesture as if to say _Oh I couldn't possibly. _Then she heard her backup singers joining in with the call. She glanced around the stage, taking in her chanting backup singers and Otto peering out from the wings, his face pinched. She nodded to them all.

When she turned back to the microphone, she beamed. "Well, I suppose we could have just _one _more-" the rest of her sentence was drowned out by the gathered soldiers' uproar of applause. A moment later the band launched into the opening of _We Work On_, from the movie Alice had starred in, and her backup singers steadied themselves – they'd all prepared for an encore, of course.

A moment later Alice opened her mouth, raised her arms, and launched into song.

She might have reached her encore, but her work for tonight had only just begun.

* * *

When the performance ended and the stage began to be packed up, Alice and her backup singers didn't go to the dressing room as they usually did. They had a train directly afterwards, so instead of changing first they walked in full stage makeup through the town-turned-camp, escorted by a host of Wehrmacht officers.

Soldiers stared as the vivid retinue passed, making Alice's backup singers laugh behind their hands. The girls were in fine spirits, chatting with the senior officers and talking about the delights waiting in Rome. Alice, the sensible one of the lot of them even though plenty of them were older than her, smiled at their jokes and made some recommendations for sightseeing. The threat of Allied bombing went unsaid.

Alice asked Otto if he'd ever been to the Pantheon, and when he shook his head she gasped and informed him that she'd be taking him.

They made it to the station just as the light sliding below the horizon became a soft purple glow, said their farewells to the officers who'd escorted them, and filed onto the train. Alice drew in a breath of cold, sharp air before stepping aboard, her white dress trailing over the gap between the train and the platform.

Inside, the train was warm and cramped. The girls headed straight for the refreshment car, and barely paused to shout a rowdy _goodbye_ when Alice yawned and told them that she was going to try to get some sleep in her compartment.

Alice dawdled down the train toward her compartment, calm in the knowledge that unlike most other passengers she had a whole compartment to herself, and the porters had already delivered all their luggage to the right compartments. The train pulled away from the station with a judder and a squeak of brakes. Alice slipped past a busy train attendant on her way down, smiling even as she yawned.

But then she arrived at her compartment. She yawned once more for good measure as she stepped inside, but then slid the door shut behind her and lowered the blinds, her tiredness evaporating. She tore off her dress, shrugging off the shoulders and yanking it down in a satin puddle around her feet, before reaching up to grab her suitcase from the luggage compartment.

She unzipped the case and reached in for her 'Al' clothes: a pair of sturdy yet worn trousers, bandages to bind her chest, layers to disguise her figure, a jacket which had the Wehrmacht plans sewn into it (she still needed to maintain her cover for the meet) and a pair of muddy boots. She began pulling it all on, twisting her hair up under her tried-and-tested flat cap.

She overbalanced occasionally as the train drove north away from the front line, navigating the bends in the mountainous countryside. It was already full dark outside, so Alice could only just see the shapes of buildings flicking past, turning into countryside.

As she pulled on her boots, she heard four knocks at the door.

"Enter," she called.

The door slid open to reveal Otto and their stylist/resistance agent Heidi. Otto quirked a brow at Alice – she'd walked in as the white, stylish Siren and become a grubby young man in the space of minutes. Heidi, on the other hand, just tossed Alice a wet cloth. Alice smiled appreciatively and began scrubbing off her makeup.

Heidi was a few years older than Alice, had secretly married a man in the Polish resistance last year, and was tough as nails. More importantly, no one else knew she was on this train. She was officially enjoying a few days off in Bologna.

"Are you ready?" asked Otto as they filed into the compartment and slid the door shut again.

"Yes," Alice replied as she peeled away the smeared cloth. She patted her dark jacket. "The documents are all here." She said that mostly for Heidi's benefit – as far as she knew, this meet was only about the Wehrmacht troop movements they'd uncovered last week. Alice frowned at the sheen of sweat on Otto's forehead. "Are you okay?"

He flapped a hand at her and went to peer out the window. "The fever is passing. And I might actually get some rest in Rome."

Alice knew him better than that, but she let it go. As she pulled a tin of greasepaint from her breast pocket and began dabbing it into her eyebrows to darken them she turned to Heidi, who had pulled down another bag from the luggage compartment. "Are you ready?"

Heidi pulled a pale blonde wig out of the bag. "Yes. Anna" – their only backup singer who also doubled as a resistance agent – "will have those girls so drunk by the time we get to Rome that they won't give two figs about me going straight to your hotel room." She crouched down to pick up the dress Alice had shucked off, and frowned at the wrinkles. "Then I'll just arrange a few Siren spottings in Rome. Do you actually want me to go to the Pantheon?"

"It couldn't hurt," said Otto from where he peered out of the window into the night. "We'll have you wear sunglasses."

Alice smeared greasepaint on her jaw in the shadowy approximation of a beard. She patted down her cap, readjusted her jacket, and then checked her reflection in the window. It was so dark outside that the glass had practically become a mirror. She rolled her shoulders forward into the loping hunch of Al and clenched her jaw.

She turned to Heidi and Otto. "Okay?"

Otto just glanced over his shoulder and nodded, but Heidi cocked her head, reached up to slide her hands along the very top of the luggage rack, then dropped back down to pat her dusty hands over Alice's face.

Alice wrinkled her nose, then sneezed. "… Thanks."

"You looked too clean." Heidi didn't apologize. She never did, and Alice quite liked it.

"I suspect I won't be clean by the time I get to the drop anyway."

"Speaking of which," Otto said, "we're here."

Alice felt herself shift forward in her seat as the train slowed, and half a moment later the car squeaked as it shifted to the right as the train entered a bend.

Alice let out a breath and got to her feet, clutching the luggage rack to keep herself steady. With her other hand she patted her belt and pockets: knife, compass, false papers (according to which, she was a young Italian man from a small town nearby). _Ready to go._

Otto slid down the glass and they all winced at the inrush of cold air. Alice's jacket flapped until she buttoned it down. Otto stuck out his head out the window and glanced up the line.

"Alright, here should be perfect." He ducked back inside, looking ruffled, and met Alice's eyes. "Now it goes without saying, but please be careful."

Alice smiled. "I will. I'll see you both tomorrow afternoon."

"I don't want to have to find another singer," Otto grumbled.

She laughed. "That would be tragic." She gripped the window frame and hoisted herself up so she had one leg outside the car and one inside. She pushed her body through and hissed at the sluice of cold air that slammed into her as she sat on the windowsill, making her skin burn. She could hardly see anything around beyond the spill of light emitted by the train. Gravel and grass whisked away beneath her.

Alice knew the train had slowed to take the bend, but it still _felt _too fast.

She looked back into the car, where Otto and Heidi watched her with concealed anxiety.

Alice met Heidi's eyes. "Don't do anything embarrassing while you're me."

Heidi rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about me, worry about you!"

Alice drew in a steadying breath. She thought about offering more witty words of goodbye, because they made her feel brave, but then she glanced up the line and saw an outcrop of rocks fast approaching. _Now or never._

Without another glance back into the train she swung her other leg through and _leaped_ –

She fell, weightless in the freezing air, before thudding to the ground in a roll like Peggy had taught her. As soon as she'd stopped moving she flattened herself face-down to the damp grass and gravel, waiting until she couldn't hear the train any more.

When the only sounds she could hear were the hoot of owls in the forest and the branches rustling in the trees, she lifted her head. She'd expected pitch blackness but her surroundings were better lit than she'd thought; the moon had come out from behind the clouds.

Alice got to her feet, looking around. Her entire front was damp from the dewy grass and she'd skinned the side of her hand in the gravel, but otherwise she'd made it off the train in one piece. _Now to make it to the meet._

Her breath came in a cloud of vapor.

By the dim light of the moon she oriented herself. _That_ jagged silhouette cutting into the night sky must be Monte Sirente, and she slowly swiveled until she saw the valley dropping away to her left, with the dark gleam of a river. She brought out her compass, checked her bearing, and then strode down the grassy embankment into the thick forest.

_If only this Argus person knew how much trouble they were causing._

* * *

Telegram transmission from Agent Margaret Carter to Agent Badger, December 1943 (transmitted via proxy agent embedded in Rome):

_B, we received your transmission that H is active, and have urgent information regarding that initiative. A correspondent will be at meeting point X4 in an hour to explain the situation._

* * *

Alice battled her way through the forest in the dark, swearing under her breath and flinching at every distant _crack _and rustle. The terrain was rocky and mountainous, and her view of the starry sky got swallowed up by the thick branches of the forest.

She'd dressed for the weather, but she still ended up having to shove her hands under her armpits to keep them from shaking.

After ten minutes of thick forest she came to an open plain. She hesitated a moment, eyes darting, then ducked down low and _sprinted._ Her feet flew over the grass and the wind whistled in her face. Halfway across she saw moving silhouettes across the plain and nearly jumped out of her skin until she realized she'd spotted a herd of deer-like animals with strange arcing horns. She raced into the treeline on the other side of the plain, heart in her mouth, and promptly pitched headlong over a fallen log.

_Ow._

Alice had never lived this life. She'd hardly seen a forest during her childhood as she'd been very much a child of the city in Brooklyn, and in Vienna her uncle hadn't exactly been outdoorsy. And when it came to her work in the war, usually she was slipping down alleyways and hiding behind dumpsters, not battling through the wilderness.

As she pulled herself to her feet and kept following the ridgeline, she silently thanked Peggy for abandoning her in that field in upstate New York. It meant she _knew _she could do this. Though she didn't have to imagine that everyone she might meet was a Nazi this time.

Alice hopped over a small stream and scrabbled up an embankment, wincing at the feeling of mud between her fingers. Her lungs burned from the cold air.

She didn't often think of herself as _soft_, but this journey felt cold and jarring after the life she usually led. The world seemed to stretch wide around her, and she couldn't help but feel acutely alone. If she broke her ankle out here, probably no one would find her. Worse, the Germans might find her.

Alice gritted her teeth as she checked her compass and the nearest landmark (a jagged peak). _Chin up_, _Alice. _She could do this. There were boys on the front doing this sort of thing every day, she could manage for a night.

She kept repeating this mantra as she approached the edge of the forest line, where she could see a short rise up to the lip of a ridge. She sank down to the ground and army-crawled up the incline. Gravel scraped against her chin.

She reached the top and looked down into the slight valley below, immediately picking out the shape of a small train station, long abandoned, with overgrown tracks stretching away down the valley. On the other side of the station the dark mass of the forest grew thick again.

Alice checked her watch, squinting to see the hands by the light of the moon. _11PM. Right on time._

The station was no more than a small brick shack on a platform with a bench outside. There was a slight shift of movement, and Alice picked out the shape she had not seen immediately: a man sitting on the bench, slumping slightly with his hat pulled down, seemingly drunk.

Just like Peggy's message had said to expect. Alice had been surprised to hear that her initial contact would be a man, but she supposed Peggy had brought troops with her; a smart move when travelling behind enemy lines.

Alice whistled six low notes: the opening trumpet riff from _Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy _(which meant she'd had the song stuck in her head all day), and the man sitting at the train station reached up to tip his hat.

Alice allowed herself to draw in a deep breath, checked her cap to make sure none of her hair had escaped, then scrambled over the lip of the rise and down toward the train station. Halfway down, she felt the man's eyes land on her though he hadn't visibly moved. She made sure to keep her gait slouched and youthful.

She hoisted herself up to the concrete platform and said, slightly out of breath: "_Stai guardando le stelle?_" [_Are you stargazing?_] Her Italian was pretty convincing; she wasn't fluent but she'd learned a lot from opera and from touring the country.

The man shifted, looking up at her. Under the dark red cap he wore (it had a blank patch where Alice suspected there'd once been an insignia), he had a narrow, handsome face with intelligent brown eyes, a furrowed brow, and a thin mustache. He wore some kind of dark brown uniform.

"_No, sto solo prendendo un po 'd'aria_." [_No, I'm just getting some air_]. He spoke Italian with a distinctly English accent, but his pronunciation was pretty good.

Alice let out a breath at the exchange of codewords. _I made it._

The Englishman got to his feet with an energized look in his eyes, and the impression of a slumping drunkard melted away. "Thank goodness you made it, we've had intelligence that there's a German military encampment two miles that way" – he pointed east – "meaning this is a hotter area than we thought."

Alice glanced east, her stomach dropping. If she'd taken a wrong turn, she could have ended up right in the Germans' camp. And her extraction point was east - how would she get there now?

The Englishman jerked his head at her and hopped off the platform. "We'd best get out of the open." After a second of hesitation Alice hopped down after him, and he began leading her to the treeline. "They say you're a valuable asset, and we've got orders to escort you to a safe travel point eighty miles north of here."

_Dammit. _Alice ground her teeth. This wasn't the first time plans had changed unexpectedly, but this likely meant that she wouldn't be back in Rome tomorrow. She was sure the SSR would let Otto and Heidi know, and they would cover for her, but this meant _days _of pretending to a man. _Ugh._

She frowned. "Where's Agent Carter?"

The Englishman cocked his head at her as they entered the treeline and strode through the forest. Their boots sank into the damp ground. "They didn't tell you? Agent Carter can't leave London right now, so she sent us instead. Though – my apologies for forgetting – she did tell us to tell you _strudel._"

Alice's eyebrows flew up. _Strudel _was one of the many codewords she and Peggy had agreed upon. This one meant _trust_. Peggy wouldn't have given it out to someone else unless she truly trusted them completely. Alice eyed the Englishman more closely. Perhaps he was a compatriot of Peggy's from Britain.

"_Bene_," [_Okay_] Alice eventually said, keeping her voice low. She frowned. "You keep saying _us_."

"Yes, we – ah, there they are." He nodded ahead, and Alice followed his gaze to see a wire fence cutting through the forest ahead of them, littered with moss and twigs. A whole portion of it sagged in the middle. Perhaps an old property marker. On the other side of the fence stood two men hidden in shadow. Alice's steps slowed, but the Englishman sped up towards the men.

"Hello again," greeted the Englishman, "see anything?"

The larger silhouette spoke in a broad American accent: "We spotted a German patrol two clicks away, but seems they don't bother with this fence. Got the informant?" Alice drew closer. The speaker was a burly man with a strong jawline, a thick mustache, and bizarrely, a bowler hat on his head. He wore a uniform a shade darker than the Englishman's and carried a shotgun.

"He's here," the Englishman replied, glancing over his shoulder at Alice. Both men behind the fence eyed her.

"Come on then," muttered the smaller one, a Japanese-appearing man with wary eyes. He also spoke with an American accent. As he crouched down to lift up a loose portion of the wire fence, Alice spotted a submachine gun fastened to his back.

The Englishman crawled under the gap in the fence, and after a second of hesitation Alice followed.

"You're a small lad, aren't ya?" said the larger man in surprise.

Alice straightened and shrugged. She sensed them sizing her up.

The Englishman dusted off his hands and glanced at Alice. "The camp's a ten minute walk away." He pointed along the fence line, up the side of the valley.

Alice nodded her assent and they got moving. But it turned out she'd found herself in talkative company.

A large hand appeared in her field of vision. She followed it up to see the large American giving her a friendly look.

"I'm Dugan, but you can call me Dum-Dum." Alice's eyebrows rose even as she shook his hand. She felt glad for the dirt on her hands, which concealed the relative softness of her skin.

Dum-Dum Dugan shrugged. "It's an old nickname, hard to explain. But I figure if we're going to be in kahoots for the next little while we might as well get to know each other." He gestured to the Englishman. "That there is Monty-"

"That's _Major Falsworth_ to you, Dugan," the Englishman replied exasperatedly over his shoulder. Dugan paid him no mind.

"And our talkative friend here is Morita," Dugan gestured to the other American, who just rolled his eyes. Alice suspected they were both used to Dugan's boisterousness.

"And you are?" Dugan continued, not so subtly peering at her as they clambered up the side of the valley.

"Al," she replied, focusing on her footing.

"That short for something?"

"_Si. _Alessio." 'Al' was also Alain in France, Albrecht in Germany, Alfred when she was pretending to be English or American, and Aleksander when she went further East.

"You from round here Al?"

Alice nodded, but didn't elaborate further. She was still waiting for them to ask her about her intel – the whole purpose for this visit – but they seemed determined to get back to their camp. Perhaps they weren't in charge.

As they rose out of the valley and into the next one, still forging their way through thick forest, Alice eyed her newfound company. Dugan seemed casual enough, but they moved with trained precision: hands on their weapons, eyes searching the underbrush and scrutinizing Alice all at once.

Now that she wasn't alone Alice could admit to herself that the forest was quite beautiful: the way it clung thickly to the mountains, the fresh air, the distant calls of night birds and insects. She still shivered in the cold, but having others around her made her feel less like she was about to die in a ditch.

"You're awful young to be joining the Resistance," Dugan commented. "Though I s'pose that's the way things have turned out these days."

Alice knew she appeared much younger in her 'Al' disguise, but she avoided the question all the same. "How do two Americans and an Englishman end up in Italy together? What division are you in?" She supposed they could have been SSR agents, but they had the bearing of soldiers.

Falsworth answered with a smile in his voice. "You're right, it's unusual. We're in the 107th Tactical Team."

_Steve's dad's regiment. _Alice pushed the thought away. She focused on not losing her footing as they ducked past trees on their way down the side of the mountain. The forest was thick here, only flashes of moonlight peeking through the branches.

"Tactical team?" she asked distractedly.

"Led by Captain America," added Dugan with a distinctly bragging tone.

Alice's eyebrows hiked up. _What have you gotten me into, Peggy? _"I read about you guys. Bane of the Nazis, good for you. They call you the _Invaders._" She liked the angry and yet dismissive way the Nazis spoke about Captain America and his team, like they were scared but didn't want to show it.

"It's a living," said Falsworth dryly.

"But Captain America? Really? I have trouble believing the things I read about him, even though they're watered down by German propaganda."

To her left, Morita snorted. "Oh, he's real alright."

Alice opened her mouth to pry further, but then she heard the distant rumble of a voice through the trees and stopped dead, heart in her mouth.

Her compatriots didn't seem alarmed though. They kept walking, and as Alice hesitantly followed she spotted a faint glow peeking through the tree trunks. The sounds of teasing and low laughter became distinct as they approached.

Alice focused on her disguise once more: shoulders rolled slightly forward, legs gangly, her jaw clenched to make it more pronounced. First impressions were always most important: if she appeared male from the start, it was easy for others to go on thinking of her that way.

Dugan was the first to slip through the last few tree trunks into a small clearing. "Finally," he sighed, "my feet are killing me."

Falsworth followed, then Morita, then Alice.

"You'd think your feet are more deadly than the Germans," Falsworth retorted, "the way you carry on about them."

Alice hung back, eyes darting. At the center of the clearing lay a firepit glowing with coals (smart: no smoke and little light to be detected by). Alice counted four more men sitting around the firepit on stones, who all glanced up as the newcomers arrived. Low calls of greeting filled the air.

Alice kept her face tilted down and in shadow as a tall, broad man in a weird helmet stood up to face them. He had something circular strapped to his back. _Captain America, I suppose_.

"Did you pick up the informant?" He asked, and Alice blinked at his voice. Maybe it was just that she hadn't heard an American accent in a while, let alone a New York one-

"This is him," Falsworth said, gesturing back at Alice. Morita and Dugan made straight for the firepit, sighing as the warmth washed over them.

Captain America squinted at her, clearly trying to get a read on her. His back was to the light so Alice couldn't see him clearly, so she scanned the other men around the coals: a black man in a helmet, an older man in civilian clothes, and a man in a blue coat that… that… her eyes flew open.

"Everything alright?" Captain America asked, and her eyes darted back to him. He peered at her, tilting his head so the light of the coals bathed his face, and Alice _knew _those eyes. She knew that voice, she'd imitated that voice when she felt alone. And that face-

Her mouth fell open.

"_Steve?_"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops.
> 
> My planning notes for this chapter said "chapter break here lmao", so who am I to go against my past planning decisions?


	39. Chapter Thirty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: some swears, and also an academic discussion of PTSD.

_ **~ With song, we welcomed fallen heroes into what lay beyond. But all is different now. ~** _

* * *

Captain America's eyebrows flew up.

Everyone in the campsite froze.

Alice stared open mouthed at Captain America – _Steve_ – as her mind reeled. The moment she'd said his name she felt instantly foolish because this _couldn't _be him, not this massive, towering man… but his reaction and the reactions of all the other men confirmed it.

Her ears ringing louder than when the RAF had dropped a bomb on her, Alice reached up and tugged off her cap, releasing her hair across her face and shoulders.

The men at the firepit swore and did double-takes, but Alice had eyes only for the _giant _in front of her. She realized a second too late that she hadn't even considered not blowing her cover, but she'd already used her undisguised voice and she didn't care because it was _Steve._

At the sound of her voice, and with her hair and face suddenly exposed to the light, Steve took a stumbling step back. His face bloomed with shock and his mouth fell open.

"_Alice?_"

That was his voice, alright.

By the fire, Alice heard Bucky's voice: "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what the _fuck._"

Alice stared at Steve so hard her eyes burned. "What the _hell, _what… what happened to you? What are you doing here?"

Falsworth, who'd frozen in the process of sitting down, straightened at hearing her undisguised voice. "She's _German._" In a flurry the other men (save for Bucky) reached for their weapons, confused.

Steve took a few steps toward Alice until he was within arm's reach. "What am _I _doing here? What are _you _doing here? You're the… you're the informant?" His eyes darted, wild and utterly confused.

"You're _Captain America?_" she shot back. The words sounded so bizarre that she wanted to laugh. Or cry. He wore a dark blue uniform with straps and gun holsters and a white and red band around his middle. Alice reached out with a shaking finger and prodded the star on his chest. He didn't try to stop her, though she distantly heard the _clicks _of gun safeties being removed. Steve's chest was solid, and utterly broad.

Her eyes tracked up, up, to his helmet with the white _A _on it. "What _happened_?" she breathed. Her gaze landed on his face.

Steve looked down at her (for the first time ever), with amazement and shock and a tinge of horror.

The moment hung long and wrought with wild confusion between them.

"So I guess you two know each other," Dugan said wryly, the first of them all to recover.

Alice and Steve both glanced over to see him and the other men with their weapons raised, then looked back at each other. Steve's chest rose and fell like… like it used to after he had a coughing fit in the middle of winter. But she doubted a cold would wear him out so easily _now. _He was staring at her more intensely than he ever had before, as if by simply staring he could peer into her very soul. She could see his thoughts whirling behind his eyes.

Alice slowly shook her head and said, faintly: "I think we need to have a chat."

Steve swallowed. "Yeah. I think we do." He hesitated, then gestured toward the firepit. Alice turned, and instantly her gaze locked with Bucky's.

He looked different too, though not as different as Steve. He wore a navy double-breasted coat, hardly military standard, and he had shadows in his face that she didn't recognize. His face was blank with shock, and her throat closed up when she realized his eyes were gleaming.

Alice opened her mouth. Closed it. _I thought I'd never see them again._

"Captain," Falsworth said with his hand on his gun, "Are you sure you trust her? She's German."

"Austrian."

Alice blinked. She and Steve had both spoken at the same time – her in irritation, him almost distantly, as if he hadn't realized he'd said anything at all.

"So's Hitler," Dugan muttered.

Alice's eyes narrowed, but then she realized that every man around the firepit was looking to Steve – not in suspicion, but waiting for his OK. With a leap of her heart, she realized that he was their leader.

Alice turned to see Steve staring at her still, and she sensed him weighing her up. She thought of the last letter he'd sent her. Of the months of silence that had followed. She knew that none of their childhood years would matter if he thought she was a Nazi.

Normally that might have scared Alice, but instead of the rigid spike of panic, she felt the tension drain out of her. She didn't understand how she'd gotten here, with Steve, but he was looking at her and measuring her worth and whatever he decided, she knew she'd accept it.

After what felt like an age, Steve nodded. "I trust her."

Alice let out an embarrassingly loud breath of surprise. Tears sprang to her eyes and she fought them down, but Steve noticed.

"Sit down," came Bucky's voice.

Everyone glanced back at him. He eyed the men. "You lot, put your weapons down and sit." They obeyed instantly, if reluctantly. "Steve, sit. Alice…" his gaze softened, and Alice felt the tears return with a vengeance. There was so much _hurt _in his eyes. "Sit."

They all perched on rocks around the coals like kids at camp, eyeing each other with mixtures of suspicion, shock, and confusion. Dugan turned to Falsworth and mouthed: _Alice? _Steve tugged off his cowl, making the back of his hair stick up.

Steve opened his mouth, staring at Alice, then closed it again. He stared at her as if he couldn't decide _how _to look at her: his gaze shifted from wide-eyed staring, to softness, to wariness, to hurt. She knew all those expressions so intimately, but he looked so much like a stranger – even the familiar shape of his face was broader, firmer, and his proportions were all wrong. And yet she noticed familiar habits: the way his finger tapped on the outside of his knee, the rigid set to his jaw.

The black man sitting to Bucky's left spoke first. "How in the hell do you guys know each other?"

"Gabe," muttered Bucky frustratedly, but the other men around the fire had muttered assent at the question. "She's… we…" Bucky's eyes landed on Alice's face. "We knew her in Brooklyn."

Alice knew she didn't have the right to feel the sharp spike of hurt that plunged through her, but she felt it all the same.

An awkward moment passed. Steve opened and closed his mouth once more.

"Explain," Bucky translated.

Alice hesitated. "I… but you're enormous now, Steve, how did that happen?"

Steve blinked and glanced down at himself, as if he'd forgotten, but then looked up with a complicated twist in his expression. "Alice… we thought you were…" his eyes hardened. "You need to tell us how you're here. Like… that."

Echoing his look of surprise, Alice glanced down at herself. Right. Bound chest, filthy clothes, greasepaint on her chin. Her hair was a wild tangle of pins. Self-consciously, she scrubbed her sleeve across her chin even as her stomach twisted. Neither Bucky or Steve had said it aloud, but it was plain in their voices: _we think you're a Nazi._ _Explain._

The other men around the coals watched her every move, narrow-eyed.

There was really no explanation for this. Well, save for the truth.

Alice ducked her head. "I've never told-" she snapped her mouth shut again.

Alice had never told anyone what she was, save for maybe Peggy and Otto. She'd never expected to, certainly not so soon. She wasn't _supposed _to. And yet with Bucky and Steve's desperate, hurt eyes on her, she knew she'd tell them everything, damn the consequences. Even though it might turn them against her.

But theirs weren't the only eyes.

She met Steve's gaze. "Steve, you trust these men?"

The men around the coals bristled, but Steve just nodded. "Whatever this is, if I say so, they won't tell anyone. Right?" he looked around at his men, and one by one they nodded.

"If you say so," Dugan grumbled.

Alice chewed on the inside of her lip. That didn't make her feel entirely comfortable, but it was as good as she was going to get.

Perhaps she had better start at the start. "It… began slowly, at first. There wasn't a plan really. Living in Vienna-"

"Wait, Vienna?" cut in Morita. "Thought you lived in Brooklyn."

Alice grit her teeth. "People move." She ran a hand through her hair and let out a hiss of frustration. She didn't know how to _do this_, she'd grown so used to deception and facades that this kind of _confession _felt alien. It overwhelmed her. She didn't know where to begin, since she couldn't pinpoint the moment she'd begun lying to Bucky and Steve. When she'd returned to Brooklyn? But no, she'd been hiding her activities long before that. When Jilí had gone missing? Even then, she'd been keeping things from Bucky and Steve for months. Maybe she'd never been entirely open with them. The half a dozen eyes on her felt like spotlights.

"Alice," Steve said with a hint of frustration in his voice, and that did it.

Alice jerked her head up, set her shoulders and said: "Well to put it very simply, I'm a spy."

Steve and Bucky sat back, wide-eyed (though not in complete shock – it appeared as if they'd guessed part of the truth), but the other men just looked more suspicious. _Maybe not the best way to put it._

She went on. "I shouldn't be telling you any of this. But while I lived in Vienna, with Jilí, I realized that I could help people. It started off as giving people food, and then it turned into information gathering and spreading. Our work got bigger and bigger when the war started, and there was always more to do. I realized I could help in other countries, so I did. And then I realized that I could do even more. So I went back to America and I-" she cut herself off, thinking. She barely noticed the still-suspicious glances of most of the men.

_Strudel._

"Hang on, are you guys with the SSR?"

Steve blinked and Bucky's eyebrows rose.

Alice's jaw worked. "You _are. _You know Peggy too, don't you? She sent you?"

"_You _know Agent Carter?" Bucky shot back, the picture of confusion.

"She _trained me._ I came back to Brooklyn to connect with the SSR, and they took me on as an agent." Steve's face shuttered. She knew what he was thinking: all that time in Brooklyn, she'd lied to them. Alice pressed her lips together. "She mustn't know that I know you."

"She would've warned us," Steve muttered.

Alice let out a breath. "Anyway… something happened, and I had to come back to Europe. Since then I've been working with the SSR, providing them with intelligence and assisting with missions."

Bucky shook his head. "All this time, you've been…?"

Alice swallowed. "Yes. No one ever suspects _Die Sirene _is fishing for intelligence. Parties, offices, the front line – I get a free pass."

The man to Bucky's left, Gabe, piped up: "Wait, you're the Siren?"

"That singer?" Falsworth frowned.

Gabe's eyes were wide. "My mom used to listen to your records! At least she did before…" his face fell.

"Before I became a Nazi sympathiser?" Alice finished, half-smirking to hide her melancholy. "Yeah."

Steve looked like he had been struck by lightning. He ran a hand over his face. "Alice. I had no idea…"

"I didn't tell you," she breathed, before he or Bucky could ask the question she couldn't bear: _how could you not tell us?_ She closed her eyes. "I'm… I can't tell you how sorry I am. What you must have thought of me… I couldn't exactly write you a letter to say 'don't worry, I'm not actually evil!'" She sighed and opened her eyes again, watching the red glow of the coals. "Though at this point I'm not sure."

"But you're not evil," Bucky said with a tone of wonder. "You've been working with the Allies this whole time?"

She shrugged. She thought confession was supposed to feel good. She felt _miserable._ "I mean… more or less, yes."

She heard a few exhales from around the firepit, and felt the weight of appraising eyes on her.

"Why the disguise?" Dugan asked gruffly. Alice looked up and met his gaze. He waved a hand at her. "Why pretend to be some… some Italian boy?"

"Believe it or not, the Siren can't exactly go traipsing through the countryside. I dress like this with most of my resistance work, even with the SSR."

Dugan let out a _hmph_.

Alice wasn't finished. "And I find that soldiers tend to trust a man more easily than a woman," she said pointedly. Dugan sat back on his rock, still eyeing her closely.

Steve sat up straight, eyes alight. "Hang on. That information we got about the troop movements in the south of Italy – the Germans had no idea how it could have leaked, but if they've been going to your performances…" his eyes darted, "and those HYDRA blueprints Peggy brought back." His gaze jerked up, meeting Alice's. "You're Agent Homer, aren't you?"

Despite herself, Alice smiled. Because Steve was here, and he saw through her just as clearly as ever, and it had taken him barely minutes to unravel her secret identity.

Steve's men must have taken her smile as a cocky smirk, because a few of them laughed. Steve looked dumbstruck.

"Holy shit, Al," Bucky said with the face of a man who'd just been hit with a very heavy weight, "but you're literally in the lion's den. Are you safe? Does anyone suspect?"

"It's not exactly a safe job, Bucky," she replied softly. "But it's what I can do, so I'm going to do it. I think you guys might know something about that." She met their eyes.

For a few long moments, no one made a sound. The coals in the fire hissed and popped.

Then Steve said: "Alice." He didn't say it with any intent – it was as if the word had simply fallen from his lips, as if he couldn't hold it back a second longer. Alice's heart pounded.

Bucky gripped his knees with white knuckles. "Alice," he echoed, "You'd better get over here right now."

She practically flew across the coals.

Steve and Bucky launched to their feet and caught her in a tangle of too-big limbs and bulky uniforms. Alice banged her chin on Steve's chest and almost punched Bucky in the head trying to get her arms around them both, but then they were holding her, and it was warm, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd been held, and she practically dissolved into them.

Alice finally allowed a few of the tears that had been itching at her eyes to squeeze out, hidden in the press of the hug.

"We missed you, troublemaker," Bucky murmured.

Steve didn't say anything, and neither did Alice, but she felt his arms tighten around her and his unsteady breath begin to even out.

She could hear Steve's heart pounding, and beyond that, the sounds of the men around the firepit chuckling softly.

"Wait," Alice said, drawing her head back slightly. "I am still… very confused."

Bucky let them go and stepped back, and a second later Steve reluctantly let her go as well.

Alice frowned and gestured at Steve, encompassing the extra two feet he'd grown and how he'd somehow doubled in mass. "_How_."

More chuckles from the peanut gallery. Bucky turned and arched an eyebrow at Steve, as if to say _well?_

Steve scratched the back of his neck, looking from the smirking men around the firepit, to Bucky, to Alice again.

"Well, it's… maybe you'd better sit down again."

* * *

_Delphi_ online forum titled "Project Rebirth: Discussion Space", c. 1996

_melmoth: So as far as I can figure, the only people who'd known pre-serum Rogers and who also saw him after Project Rebirth were Sergeant Barnes, and the various SSR employees involved with the project (Colonel Phillips and Director Carter, for example). Everyone else he worked with, like the Howling Commandos (I know, not the historically accurate title, get off my back) only met him as Captain America. I wonder what that must've been like. We get the before and after pictures (see above post for reference), but what must it have been like to see that in the flesh? Especially given his enhanced abilities._

_katrings: It's a shame we don't have more record about this, really. Most Rebirth files are so classified that we don't get much detail about the before/after changes, and most of the people who knew him at the time are dead or keeping quiet. Though you can clearly tell it's the same guy (looking at you, Project Rebirth conspiracy theorists). Just look at that face. It must have been strangest for Sergeant Barnes, as most historians agree that he mustn't have known about Project Rebirth until Rogers rescued him in Austria._

_baggaloo: Imagine that. It's like the weedy kid at your school getting really buff over the summer, but like... a hundredfold. And now the kid can hold a car over his head._

* * *

They all returned to their seats, save for Dugan and Morita who went to their tent (which was more a sheet of canvas draped over a rope between two trees) to get some dinner, and Steve began to tell a _ridiculous _story.

Alice had to stop him almost immediately. "_Doctor Erskine? _Abraham Erskine?" As if they could possibly be talking about different people. She eyed Steve's massive frame. "He did this?"

Steve's eyes widened before he gave her an exasperated look. "Of course you knew him, too."

"I was there when Agent Carter rescued him from Bavaria."

"Didn't she rescue him from the Red Skull?" piped up Falsworth, frowning. The young man, Gabe, murmured indistinctly to the older civilian fellow.

Alice nodded. "I was a guest at his castle, though he was just _Obergruppenführer _Schmidt then. I've met hima few times." She saw Steve blanch, and leaned over to touch his arm. "Don't worry. I know just how dangerous he is, but he's never… well, he hasn't hurt me. He _has _scared the shit out of me. Him and Zola."

Bucky flinched. Alice frowned, but he quickly assumed a neutral expression again.

"So yes, Doctor Erskine and I knew each other," she said, her voice softening. "We met again in Brooklyn, and I… I later found out that he died."

Steve bowed his head. "I couldn't save him."

Alice's heart dropped. "It's not your fault," she reassured him, though she knew precisely nothing about the circumstances. She sighed. "Perhaps you'd better tell me everything."

Steve lifted his head and began his story again.

Alice listened, mostly in silence, as Steve told her how he'd been recruited into the SSR, chosen for a program called Project Rebirth, grown to the size of Hercules, lost Erskine, chased down a HYDRA assassin, had his own USO show for a few months (Alice couldn't even _imagine_), before coming to Europe, busting Bucky and these other men out of the Austrian HYDRA base and becoming Captain America in earnest.

"_You _are the reason that base went quiet?" Alice exclaimed. "I'd given Peggy the base location, but I thought the Germans got to them-"

"- you're the reason the SSR knew where it was?" Steve exclaimed right back.

But Alice had already moved on. "You've… you've been fighting HYDRA since then? _You're _Peggy's heavy hitter!" She leaned back, running her hands through her hair before getting tangled in the pins and wincing. "This is too much." She could hardly believe that Steve going through an insane physical transformation wasn't the craziest part of what he'd told her.

"_This _is too much?" he echoed, gesturing back at her.

Alice turned to Bucky, suddenly alarmed. "You were in that HYDRA base?" her stomach dropped as her mind flashed back to the glimpse she'd caught of a large factory with towering smokestacks and high, razor-sharp fences. "What-"

"Later," Bucky said grimly. "I'll tell you later."

Morita, who'd been spooning beans out of a can, cleared his throat. "I know this is weird for you guys and all, but since no one seems to be bothering to ask, why did Agent Carter tell us to come out here to meet you?"

Alice and Steve stopped talking over each other and fell still. Alice blinked. _Right. _The moment she'd seen Steve's face the mission had flown right out of her head. But now she sat in a clearing in occupied Italy with Steve, Bucky, and five other soldiers, under the night sky, with a German military encampment a few miles away, and a mission to complete.

"Yeah," Dugan added, "How do we know you aren't just saying all this?"

Alice narrowly resisted shooting him a glare, but she did see Bucky and Steve share an exasperated glance. She supposed Dugan had a right not to take her at her word.

"Right," Alice said. She shrugged off her jacket, shivering at the cold and making the men around the fire raise their eyebrows. "I'm _officially _here because Ot– a fellow agent and I uncovered these Wehrmacht plans." She slid her knife out of her pocket (Morita, Dugan, and Falsworth shifted uncomfortably) and began carefully cutting through the stitches in the inside seams she'd made that morning.

Steve, Bucky, and the others watched as she peeled back the fabric to reveal a few pages of German typescript. She pulled them out and handed them to Steve, whose eyebrows had nearly hit his hairline. He flipped through the pages, taking in the German reports which he couldn't read, and then the maps with handwritten arrows and lines.

"Are these… troop movements?" he questioned. Bucky and the civilian man (who had barely spoken) peered over his shoulders.

"Yes. For the Wehrmacht, effective at the start of next month." Alice tugged her jacket back on, loose fabric and all.

"How did you get this?" Bucky asked.

"I can't really tell you-"

"You said _officially,_" Steve murmured, looking up from the plans.

Alice swallowed. "Yes, I did." This night had gone so far from what she'd expected. She'd been expecting to meet Peggy for a few minutes, pass on her and Otto's suspicions, and then vanish back into the night. She trusted Steve and Bucky and they trusted their men, but the idea of revealing this to so many people she didn't know made her skin crawl.

"Well?" asked Gabe.

Alice gritted her teeth. "Unofficially I'm here because… there's a HYDRA spy in the SSR."

She hadn't quite been expecting the uproar that sentence would produce. All the men exclaimed loudly, leaning forward and demanding _W__ho? How do you know? Where?_

Alice made a quelling gesture. "I don't know much, this is just what I've gathered from some overheard conversations and captured communications. I know their codename is _Argus_, and I know they'll be at Dover Castle next Saturday at 3pm. I need you to take this information back to Agent Carter as soon as you can and catch the spy when they meet with their handler."

Silence fell.

Alice gave them all a steely glance. "Can you do that?"

She'd sensed that these were the kind of men who rose to the challenge, and she was right. One by one they nodded, firm, and Steve answered for all of them:

"Yeah," he said. "We can do that."

"If we can get back on time," Falsworth added grimly. He met Alice's eyes. "Like I told you, we have orders to escort you eighty miles north of here. That'll take us about four days. That gives us another four days to get back to London and catch the spy. It'll be tight."

"Then you should forget about escorting me," Alice said. "Head back behind Allied lines and go get the spy, I'll find a way out."

"_No,_" every single person around Alice exclaimed, surprising her.

Bucky looked frustrated. "There's no way we're leaving you, for one thing, and we're also not going to go against orders. _Also_, it's far more dangerous for us to try and cut back the way we came thanks to that military encampment. Our best way out is going with the plan."

Alice nodded and set her palms on her knees, coming to terms with the fact that she'd be with them for _four whole days._ Before, the prospect had been exhausting. Now, she was a little ashamed to admit that she was relieved.

She glanced up and found Steve still looking at her, no longer in surprise but with something deeper. Alice's heart stuttered. She still couldn't believe he was really here. And every time she looked at him she did a double take, because he was just so _different._

"So," began Dugan, "if we're sticking to the original plan, we'll be clearing out of here before dawn. We should probably get some sleep," he suggested.

"Right," Bucky said, shaking his head. "Uh… Steve, I think you were next on watch. Then I'll relieve you in a few hours, and the rest of you lot can get some sleep."

"All due respect Sarge, you and Cap look like you're about to keel over."

Alice watched with fascination. She'd never met this Bucky and Steve: _Sarge _and _Cap._

Steve and Bucky turned to managing their men, convincing them they were fine to keep watch, and then making sure they were all fed and ready to march the next morning. As they worked, Alice heard a snatch of unexpected conversation.

The slightly older civilian man, who had a bristly mustache and beady dark eyes under a cap, leaned in toward Gabe and murmured "_Eh bien, c'était intéressant_". [_Well, that was interesting_]

"_Vous êtes français?_" [_You're French_?] Alice asked, perking up. Both men glanced over at her in surprise. "_Je pensais que vouz étiez juste timide!_" [_I thought you were just shy!_]

The older man smiled at her. "_Un homme peut être les deux, madame._" [_A man can be both, ma'am_] He leaned across the coals and offered her his hand. "Jacques Dernier_, La Résistance, à votre service._" [_French Resistance, at your service_]

Alice shook his hand and beamed. "_Vive la résistance. Merci pour votre travail._" [_Long live the resistance. Thank you for your work]_

He squeezed her hand and his eyes went serious. "_Non. Merci pour la vôtre._" [_No. Thank you for yours_]

Gabe smiled when they pulled apart. "He'll charm you if you're not careful."

"I'm careful," Alice replied with a smile.

Gabe adjusted his helmet. "Dernier here understands English well enough to listen to it, but he's more comfortable in French. This lot" – he jerked his head at the others milling around the clearing – "are trying to learn. I'm the French and German translator for now, though."

"And an excellent one at that," Bucky confirmed as he walked past.

Alice looked up, searching, and her heart dropped when she couldn't see a tall, blue-clad figure. Dugan, Morita, and Falsworth were arranging the tents, while Gabe and Dernier heaved up from their rocks and went to assemble the packs. But no Steve. "Where's-"

"He went out to patrol the surroundings," Bucky cut her off. At the look on her face, he came to stand by her. "He just needs a minute, Al. This is… a lot."

"I know," Alice breathed. She scanned the treeline, once, then met Bucky's eyes. "I'm sorry, Bucky."

He dropped the bedroll he'd been carrying and scooped her into his arms. "I know why you did it, and you're forgiven."

Alice melted.

Bucky chuckled into her shoulder. "Though I think you shaved a good ten years off my lifespan, showing up like that. Troublemaker."

Alice laughed wetly. "Imagine how I felt, seeing you at the fire!" She pulled away, taking in the sight of him in his strange blue uniform and the seriousness in his eyes. "All this time I've been wondering about you all – if you're safe, if you're fighting. And here you and Steve are. Right in the thick of it."

"So are you," Bucky pointed out. He let out a breath.

Alice chewed her lip before asking: "Is… is Tom…?"

Bucky's eyes widened. "He's fine! Sorry, should have said that first. We don't get a whole lot of letters from home anymore since we're so mobile, but last I heard he was doing fine at school. He was looking into jobs at factories 'round Brooklyn."

Alice let out a heavy breath of relief. She wiped her hands over her face, using the jolt of her cold skin to calm herself. Her limbs were stiff from her journey and the night air. When she looked up again, she could see Bucky's thoughts churning.

She gripped his arm. "You can't tell him about me, Bucky. That's too large a burden for a fifteen year old to bear."

His eyes darkened. "And thinking his sister is a Nazi isn't?"

Alice flinched, but held firm. "I shouldn't even be telling _you _about my work. My secrets can put so many people in danger, not just me. Do _not _tell anyone."

She stared fiercely into his eyes until he relented.

"Thank you." Alice allowed herself a brief, stabbing moment of pain for what Tom must think of her, then breathed out. She softened her hand on Bucky's arm. "Now, you. Are you alright?"

He quirked a brow. "Me?"

She leveled a _look _at him. "I know better than most that HYDRA is no joke, Bucky. How long were you in that base?"

His face shadowed. "About a month."

She let out a heavy breath. "I'm so sorry, Bucky. I… I knew that the 107th had been taken captive and I wanted to help, but there wasn't – I didn't know-"

He shook his head. "We knew damn well there was nothing anyone could do. Except, it turns out, Steve."

"He really got you all out by himself?"

Bucky ran a hand down his face. "Christ, Alice, you should've seen him. Now that he's gone and grown to the size of a tank he thinks he's invincible."

Alice laughed. "He's always thought that. Super serum, huh?" She'd seen the changes in Steve's appearance, but from some hints of what he and Bucky had mentioned… Steve was definitely not a normal man any longer, in more than appearance.

"Super serum," Bucky agreed with a sigh. "Your Erskine pal really knew how to pick his test subjects."

Alice smiled, even as she eyed Bucky out of the corner of his eye. He'd brushed her off about his HYDRA imprisonment, but _something _weighed heavily on him – his eyes didn't gleam the way they used to. She'd dig further later.

Dernier appeared at Bucky's elbow. "Sarge_, où veux-tu que la dame dorme?_" [_Where do you want the lady to sleep_?]

Bucky scratched his head as he eyed the clearing. "She'll take Steve's tent."

Alice hesitated. "Oh, I don't-"

"He's on watch," Bucky explained, "and when I relieve him he can sleep in my tent. Unless-?"

Alice's cheeks flushed despite herself. "_James Buchanan-_"

"Ooh, Sarge is in trouble," crowed Dugan. He strode up to Alice and passed her a handful of dry, hard biscuits. At her confused look, he said: "We collected up some rations. Thought you might be hungry."

"Thank you," Alice said, touched. "And I'm… sorry." She gestured to her appearance. "For the ruse."

Dugan shrugged, making his hat wobble. "Gotta admit you made a convincing boy. I don't mean anything by that, mind you, just… good job."

Falsworth looked over. "Were you really planning to keep up the disguise for four days?"

Alice nodded. "I've never gone that long as Al before, but I could've."

"Huh," Morita said as he tugged off his boots and wriggled into his tent. "Well, I hope you like hiking."

Alice glanced down at her already aching feet and sighed.

* * *

Excerpt from '_PTSD and America's Heroes,_' by Harry Toll (1982), p. 132:

_... as we've shown, it's difficult to get an accurate picture of a serving soldier's mental health, particularly extrapolating from historical records. The problem is compounded if the soldier in question served within a covert unit. But there are several records that survive in the public domain regarding Sergeant Barnes: progress reports by commanding officers, debrief reports, and some archival film reel recorded for propaganda purposes. Each of these has the potential for bias, for multiple reasons..._

_... Barnes' success as a soldier increased following his capture in Austria, as documented in his recorded kills and his reports. This may be due to his position in an elite tactical team, but it could also very well be a sign of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (officially recognized by the APA in 1980): symptoms include increased aggression and hyper-vigilance, and we don't know how these manifest in a combat situation due to lack of research._

_Evidence from Barnes' commanding officers' notes indicate that the Sergeant had become more withdrawn, less sociable, and prone to isolation. These are extrapolations from his progress of course. Barnes' debriefs to superiors were perfectly 'normal' for a soldier, though void of any emotional or personal connection. Perhaps this is the sign of an experience and professional marksman, but when these debriefs are compared with letters written by Barnes in his early years, the comparison is stark._

_Though it appears that of the Howling Commandos, Barnes may not have been the only sufferer of combat-related mental illness. At the risk of being accused of overdiagnosis, when one looks at the Howling Commandos' 'fearless leader'..._

* * *

Steve sat on the rocky face of a ridge thirty yards up from the campsite. He had an excellent view of the moonlit valley below, but his silhouette was obscured by a thorny bush.

He'd gone through the motions of a patrol, alert and yet a thousand miles away, before coming to rest here. The whole night felt like a dream.

Steve pressed his face into his hands and took deep, slow breaths. His heart, which had been racing for what felt like hours, began to slow. It almost made him smile – he used to calm himself like this when he had asthma attacks.

In the darkness of his own hands, Steve let out a sigh.

This mission was supposed to be a simple escort. Get in, get the informant to safety and collect their intelligence, get out. But as she had a habit of doing, Alice turned Steve's world on its head.

He'd known the minute he recognized her that everything he'd thought before was wrong. The article, her silence, it had not meant what he thought it did. That was why, when Falsworth had asked if he trusted her, Steve had been able to answer honestly. Because he'd known that if Alice was here, dressed like that, then she wasn't what he'd thought she'd become.

And throughout it all, even when she'd hesitated to tell the truth, Steve had only one clear thought in his mind: _I thought I would never see her again. _His heart throbbed again at the thought. It might make him the most selfish person in the world, but he'd only cared about how relieved he was that she was in front of him again.

Alice had given them barely any details, in true Alice fashion, but Steve sensed that she'd told them more tonight than she had told anybody else before.

For months now he'd been under the impression that he'd never really known her. He'd had the same feeling tonight for a moment as he listened to her talk about _missions _and _intelligence_ and watched her slit open her own jacket to reveal stolen documents. She'd had such a hard focus in her eyes. She'd been nearly unrecognizable in men's clothing, her usual figure obscured, grime on her face and her pale hair pointy with pins. Alice normally looked so well-kept, even back in Brooklyn. _This _Alice felt like a creature who'd been hiding just below the surface.

But he felt like he knew her all the same.

Steve pressed his fingers into his eyes, trying to focus. He'd slipped away from the campsite for a reason. Now that he had some distance, a whole new host of questions came to the forefront of his mind.

How long had she been doing this? Is this what caused Jilí to disappear? How exactly was Alice managing to get all her information? And why hadn't Peggy realized that Alice and Steve knew each other?

He thought back to how she'd been in Brooklyn. The disappearing at odd hours. That time she'd missed their dinner date and hadn't been at her hotel. The strange bruises that she thought he couldn't see.

Steve had had all kinds of wild guesses at the time, but not _this._

_I'm a spy._

He imagined Alice and Erskine talking. She'd spoken of the doctor with fondness, and Steve could see how they would get along. They were both profoundly idealistic while also driven by a determined directness. He imagined Alice and _Peggy _talking, and chuckled wetly into his hands.

Then, his breath catching, Steve thought of the _New York Times _article. The photos of Alice performing in Nazi uniforms, the interviews, the poster of the movie she'd starred in, the handshake with Hitler, that officer she'd been on a date with. She'd done _all that _to help people.

A surge of guilt crashed through Steve's gut. He should have known. He _knew _Alice, and he should have known that she would never turn so dramatically. But… how could he have known the extent of this?

He pulled one hand away to rub at his chest, feeling again the lance of pure elation and horror he'd felt when the young, grubby informant had slipped into the clearing, tugged off his cap and become _Alice._

With an artist's eye he pictured the determined look in her eye when she'd told them all to head back to friendly lines and leave her to fend for herself.

At some point, without his noticing, Alice had become a soldier.

Steve might have been hunched over beside a bush having an emotional crisis, but he was still on watch. So when he heard light footsteps approaching he drew his hands away from his face and hunkered down, hiding himself in the deep darkness.

A silhouette emerged over the rise. Slight, pausing uncertainly, a glint of pale hair turned silver in the moonlight –

Steve sat up. "Alice."

She flinched and jumped back. "_Scheiße, _Steve, you scared the life out of me."

"Sorry. What are you doing up here?"

"Oh you know, I wanted to see the view," she said lightly as she picked her way across the craggy ridgeline toward him. "Bucky said you'd be up here."

He didn't move as she approached and sat down beside him in the shadow of the bush. They both looked out over the valley. He could just feel the radiant warmth of her beside him. He let out a long, slow breath.

"You're sneakier than you used to be," Alice murmured after a moment. "I'd have thought it would be the opposite since you're enormous now."

"It took some getting used to."

They hadn't spoken much about his physical change, but he sensed her eyeing him now: the different shape of him, how his face was higher up than it used to be when he looked at her. Alice shifted and wrapped her hands around her knees.

"Did it hurt?" she asked, gesturing to the sheer bulk of him.

Steve shrugged slightly. "Yeah. But not for long." He turned to face her more directly. The moonlight etched out the details of her face – the point of her nose, pale brows and eyelashes, the curve of her cheekbone. "I'm mostly used to the difference now. Bucky too, though he was just as confused as you at first."

Alice shook her head slowly. "The world has changed so much." She smiled sadly. "And so have we. Only you've just changed on the outside."

"You have too," he said softly. Before he realized what he was doing he'd reached out to touch the fading scar he'd noticed beside her left eye. He sensed her stop breathing as the pad of his finger brushed her skin. He retracted his hand hastily and gave her a questioning look.

She pressed her lips together. "Shrapnel."

"I thought you were a spy, not a soldier."

"It seems the skills converge sometimes."

He could tell she didn't want to give any more details, but he couldn't stand _not knowing _any longer. "Alice."

She saw the conflict in his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry. Secrecy is a habit now. This…" she touched the scar, "happened in Berlin. I was out on the streets – after getting those HYDRA blueprints – when the RAF started their bombing raids. I almost ran right into the bomb that did this." Her hand dropped. "I made it back in one piece, though. Many didn't."

Steve closed his eyes. When he opened them again, she'd turned her head to look out over the forested valley.

"I don't think you've changed, though," he added. She faced him once more, brow quirked. "Not really. Everything around you might've changed but you're still you. The Alice Moser I knew kept secrets and stuck up for those who couldn't stick up for themselves in school, and she'd be doing exactly what you're doing now. I knew that when you came back to Brooklyn, and I know it now."

She turned her face away, and for a moment he felt a flare of panic – _did I say something wrong? _– but then he saw a gleaming tear spill down her cheek.

His shoulders slumped. _There she is. _The last of his fear drained out of him, because this was Alice, and he _knew her._ He knew the hard shell of ice which she drew back only with the people she trusted most, to reveal the warm, kind soul within.

He shook his head as he stared at her. "This makes… so much sense."

She faced him with tears in her eyes and her hands twisting in her lap. "Steve, I don't know how to apologize to you for this. You all must have been… so confused. And angry. I can't imagine what you thought of me. And Tom…"

"Tom didn't believe it. I still don't think he does, not really."

"And you?"

Steve's face fell. "I… I didn't want to believe it. I was mostly just confused, and hurt, I…" he could see every word breaking her heart. He shook his head. "But it doesn't matter."

"It does," she disagreed. "I did that to you. I let you think-"

"I forgive you," he cut her off. "Of course I do."

Alice's eyes _seared _him. She swallowed, glanced down to collect herself, then met his eyes. "Maybe you're right. You know everything now, for better or for worse, and…" her lip quirked. "I'm trying to pretend I'm not uproariously happy about it."

A grin split Steve's face. "You're really here," he murmured. "You're _you_, and you're here."

"I am." Her eyes flickered nervously, gauging his expression. "And so are you."

Steve swayed toward her as if she were magnetic and he were a great lump of metal. Her eyes widened and her breath caught. Watching her, Steve felt the familiar roil of fear and longing and doubt and excitement that he remembered from that long-ago morning on his living room floor when they'd talked about kissing, and again more recently when they'd sat on his couch and he'd set his small, frail hand to her cheek and asked _is this alright?_

He wondered how many more first kisses they were going to have, and if he'd always be so terrified beforehand.

Alice's chest heaved. "If you're going to kiss me you'd better do it right now, or I'll-"

Steve laughed and leaned in the rest of the way, crashing their noses together awkwardly before she tilted her face up to his and their lips met. She gasped against his mouth, and Steve wanted to say _I know_, but he was too busy sliding his fingers into her hair, his other hand on the side of her neck. Her lips tasted like tears so he kissed them away.

Alice surged forward, arms winding around his neck and Steve, who'd been cross legged and stretching forward to kiss her, leaned back and landed a hand on her side to steady her as she rose above him on her knees. His heart raced, speeding up as she slid her hands to cup his face. If he'd been his old self he'd have been gasping for breath by now. He felt pretty breathless all the same, serum be damned. Maybe his lungs had never been the problem.

As Alice's lips moved against his and her hands cradled his face, Steve's ears rang and his body thrummed, as if she were a livewire he couldn't break away from. He pulled her, unconsciously, and she sank awkwardly into his lap, accidentally kneeing him in the stomach. He didn't bother pretending that it had winded him since he was too busy making her sigh against his lips. He remembered how to do this even if the serum had changed him.

The rest of the world didn't feel real.

Steve slid his hand around to the small of her back, her coat rough under his palm, and Alice pulled back a little, drawing in a shuddering breath as she leaned her forehead against his. Steve peppered her lips with light kisses, making her smile.

She had her foreleg pressed against his stomach and her other leg draped over his hip, half-sitting in his lap and supporting herself with her arms around his neck.

She opened her eyes lazily, meeting his gaze. "This wasn't how I imagined us meeting again," she murmured.

"How did you imagine it?" He smoothed her hair back. He'd made even more of a mess of it.

"Well, you were smaller-" He laughed at that, and she traced her fingers down his cheek. "And we were safe. In Brooklyn, the war over, and I'd come back like I always said I would."

"We'll still have that," he murmured. "Only we'll go back together this time."

Alice's eyes pressed shut and he saw tears glimmering in her eyelashes. "You finally know all my secrets," she breathed. He felt her chest shudder under his hand.

Steve shifted, tugging her into a closer, more comfortable position. He had long arms now and he used them to wrap her up close to him, so close that he felt her heart beating against his chest. "That's what was holding you back, in Brooklyn."

She nodded against his chest. "There was so much I couldn't tell you. So much you didn't know about me, and I…" she swallowed. "I thought you wouldn't…"

"You thought I wouldn't want you, if I knew," he finished. She lifted her head to meet his eyes, fearful, and he laid his hand against the side of her face (covering so much more skin that it used to). "Alice," he breathed. "_Alice Moser._"

He couldn't quite seem to get the words out, but from the sudden shift in Alice's eyes he knew that she saw it in his expression, in every fiber of his being: that he knew every part of her dark, twisted path and every part of her complicated soul and he _loved _her.

Alice closed her eyes, but not to suppress tears this time. She seemed to be basking in whatever feeling had just washed over her. "I missed you so much," she whispered.

He tugged a stray pin out of her hair. "I missed you from time to time," he said teasingly, and she pinched his side. He barely felt it through his uniform.

Alice sank against him, boneless, and he reveled in the feeling of being able to support her weight with his own. It must have been a new feeling for her too, because he heard her slight huff of bemusement.

Steve kissed the top of her head. She smelled green and dark like the forest, and she felt so _small _compared to him now. "You should get some sleep."

"So should you," she retorted instinctively.

Steve rolled his eyes. "Bucky'll relieve me in a few hours and I'll get some sleep then. But you've been… wait, where did you even come from?"

Despite herself, Alice yawned. "Had a performance at the front, and then I jumped out of the train back to Rome and walked here."

He pressed his eyes shut. "You jumped off a train."

"_You _jumped out of a plane and broke into a HYDRA base alone," she shot back, anticipating his complaint.

He laughed under his breath. "I think we're going to have to adjust to the fact that we're both doing insane things now."

"Hmm," Alice said. She yawned again.

Against his more selfish instincts Steve prodded her, making her shift and mutter complaints. "Go get some sleep," he said again. She resisted him a moment longer until he added: "I'll see you in the morning."

She swooped up to kiss him again, her hand cool and yet somehow burning at the back of his head and her lips making him chase after her as she drew away.

"Goodnight Steve," she murmured, a smile on her face as she stood, before she padded away down the ridge back to the camp.

Steve sat there a moment, watching after her, before he turned his face to the starlit sky and closed his eyes. He drew in a long, deep breath that felt like _relief. _He couldn't help the grin that split his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END
> 
> Ha, you wish.


	40. Chapter Thirty One

Alice jolted awake to the sound of a footstep near her head. Her eyes snapped open to darkness and her breath froze in her chest for a moment as she tried to recall where she was.

Someone cleared their throat. "Uh, miss…?" She recognized Falsworth's voice.

"I'm awake," she said scratchily, rubbing at her eyes. "We're moving?"

"Yes, it's time."

Alice scrambled out of the makeshift tent, already twisting her hair away and reaching for her cap. She'd slept in her clothes. She noted that Steve had not returned to his own tent after his watch, probably more out of wariness that his men would tease him into oblivion than the idea that Alice would be against it.

Alice's eyes itched with sleep as she emerged from the tent. The forest outside was still dark, and the coals in the firepit had gone out. She stretched, aching with cold. She had only the voices of the men around her to give her an idea of where they all were.

"We've got a straight shot north if we keep to the mountains," murmured Morita, and she followed the sound of his voice to see the thin beam of a flashlight pointed down at a map. She saw a shift of movement and spotted Steve's large bulk.

"Alright," Steve murmured. She heard his cowl creak as he looked around. "Alice?"

"I'm here." She finished with her cap and began disassembling the tent. It was really just a canvas and a rope, so it didn't take her long to roll it up and hoist it onto her shoulder.

Steve's fingers brushed against hers in the darkness as he walked past her, and she wondered abruptly if he had better night vision now. He used to be practically blind in the dark.

Alice listened to the mutters and rustles as Steve and his men finished their preparations.

Finally Steve murmured: "Let's go."

In a pack, they moved off into the dark forest. Alice was concentrating too hard on trying not to fall over on the uneven ground and to not bump into any of the men around her (who seemed accustomed to walking in the darkness) to concentrate on their direction. None of them spoke much. Dugan yawned from time to time.

After an hour of walking, as her muscles had begun to warm up and her eyes stopped drooping with tiredness, Alice skirted around a rock on the ground and then realized that she had enough light to see by.

She glanced up to her right, and sure enough through the gaps in the trees she saw the dim, hazy light of the sunrise. She realized that birds had begun to sing, chirps and trills echoing across the mountains. The air shivered with the cold rawness of dawn.

The small troop walking through the forest broke out onto a mountain trail overlooking a craggy valley, and Alice looked around at them all in the light of day. They stuck close together, with Steve and Morita in the lead and Bucky in the rear, cradling his submachine gun. His eyes were watchful, and Alice noticed he had another guncase slung over his back.

The whole team were armed to the teeth, by the looks of things, and each of them carried a heavy-looking pack. Alice only carried Steve's rolled-up tent, and instantly felt guilty. Plus, she only had a small utility knife to defend herself with. Steve and his men had prepared for a days-long slog through enemy territory. She'd barely prepared herself for a stroll through the woods.

The emergence of the sun had made the men more talkative, though no less wary, and Alice listened to Dugan, Gabe, and Dernier argue good-naturedly about which of their ration packs tasted best. Alice stole glances at them all as she picked her way across the mountain path behind Falsworth, noticing details which she'd missed during the night. None of them wore standard military uniforms, not even Major Falsworth; the usual uniforms had clearly been modified with extra armor and flourishes, and their weapons weren't standard issue either. Hell, Bucky had a completely unique uniform.

Alice suspected that the SSR had been generous with them. Likely Stark had designed their weapons and uniforms himself.

As they moved off the narrow mountain trail and onto a broader path just inside the treeline beside a glittering lake, Alice finally got a clear look at Steve. His uniform was the strangest of the lot: a visual representation of the American flag, hardly good for stealth, with painted wings on the side of his cowl, sturdy brown gloves and boots, and-

"What's on your back?" she asked. They no longer walked in rigid formation, so she was able to angle towards Steve, staring at him.

Steve looked over his shoulder with a frown, half turned, and then let out a noise of realization. "Oh, you mean the shield." He reached over his shoulder and slid the red, silver, and blue painted metal circle out of the holster on his shoulder blades. He flipped the disc once and then handed it toward her. "Vibranium. Strongest metal on earth."

He handed it to a doubtful Alice, who smoothed her fingers around the edges and then wrapped her knuckles against the star in the center. It echoed strangely, not loud and brassy like she'd been expecting but muted, smooth. The metal was cool, but not painfully cold from the frosty air, and the shield itself seemed large enough to cover Steve's whole torso easily.

"Peggy shot it a few times," Steve said, watching her. "It's very resistant."

Alice nodded, as if that were a perfectly reasonable way to test metal shields. She slid her arm through the straps (which hung loosely around her much smaller arm) and hoisted the shield, protecting herself. It seemed to block out all the noise ahead, dousing her in sudden muted silence.

"Why a shield?" she asked.

Steve watched her with the shield with a funny look on his face. The other men were throwing glances her way as well. "What do you mean?"

She swiped her arm through the air, and the shield whistled. "I know the SSR, and I know Stark will have been cooking up all kinds of interesting weapons." She jerked her head at the modified guns around her. "What made you choose a shield?"

Steve's eyes softened. "It's like I told Erskine. I don't _want _to kill anyone. I don't like bullies." Alice's mouth ticked up and she turned the shield to eye the painted front. Steve watched her. "A shield felt like the right tool to bring with me."

"_D'ailleurs, il est une arme avec ses deux mains,_" [_Besides, he's a weapon with his own two hands_] Dernier added. Alice laughed, and most of the other men had understood enough to laugh as well. Steve went pink.

"And that shield can be plenty deadly," Bucky added lowly.

Alice smoothed her palm over it once more, thinking.

"You haven't said what you think," Steve noted. His tone was aiming for casual, but she sensed that her thoughts on this meant more to him than a casual observer's.

She tapped the shield with a fingernail and then handed it back to him. "I just thought it was funny that a man with zero sense of self preservation went and got himself a shield." She smiled to soften the joke, and Steve's men roared with laughter.

"Fair enough," he said, smiling and pleased as he reholstered it.

"I'm not even going to ask about the outfit," she added.

* * *

Excerpt from _Operation Discus: Progress Report _December 18 1943 (Agent Margaret Carter to Colonel Phillips). Archived by Catherine Laurey, SHIELD Archivist:

_Colonel,_

_All seems to be going to plan. There's been no word of unrest in the area, which is a good sign. Homer's allies have been notified and are making cover plans - they seem confident Homer's absence will not be noticed. Extraction Plan B remains in place._

_All that's left is to monitor the situation, and wait._

_\- Agent MC_

* * *

The wide, glittering lake emptied out into a river that carved along the mountainside, which the 107th Tactical Team and Alice walked beside on their way north. They were yet to see a single sign of civilization since they followed the wilderness as much as possible, avoiding going anywhere near the main roads and train lines. A few different murmured conversations cropped up.

Alice and Steve ended up side by side. She had to take two steps for every one of his, now, and she felt almost shy from the bulk of him; she was used to a slight, skinny boy at her side, not this massive uniformed soldier. But his eyes were the same, as was his careful awareness of her at all times. When she stumbled on the uneven ground he shifted closer, as if to catch her, and when she fell behind he unconsciously slowed his steps.

The sun had well and truly come out now, just warm enough to make Alice sweat under her cap and tight bandages. Not warm enough to ease the numb feeling in her fingers, though. Alice squinted as she walked and tried to ignore her complaining body.

She and Steve didn't talk about the earthshattering revelations they'd both had last night. They teased each other, and Alice asked about his art, and he asked about her music. He told her about how he'd had to get used to his new body, and Alice complained that Al's posture made her back ache. Not that she bothered with the posture now – she was dressed as Al, for safety's sake, but in her voice and actions she was all Alice.

They came to a short waterfall and had to scale a rocky slope to keep following the river. When Alice reached the top she dusted off her gritty hands and rolled her feet, wincing at the ache, as she watched the rest of the men climb over the top. Steve gave Bucky a hand up.

"So we should be able to continue north from here, now the terrain's not so restrictive," Morita muttered.

Steve unclipped a compass from his belt and flipped it open, frowning down at the readings.

Alice's eyes snagged on the compass. "Is that…?"

Steve glanced up, followed her gaze back to the compass, and then his ears went red. He nodded.

Alice's heart pounded. The compass she'd given him for Christmas the year before she left Brooklyn. He'd kept it, brought it over with him… "Even though…?"

Steve nodded again. "I… I had to bring it," he said lowly. "Now I'm very glad I did."

Alice wanted to cry.

Morita cleared this throat. "So…?"

Steve blinked, then looked back down at the compass. "That way," he said, pointing. "We should, uh, keep following the river."

Morita nodded, his eyebrows raised, and they all kept walking.

Alice kept to herself for a few minutes, prodding at the glow of pleasure that had bloomed in her chest. But then she forced herself to shake off the useless thoughts, and looked up.

"So what do you all _do_?" she asked as she fell into step beside Bucky. "Peggy told me that the SSR had a new 'heavy hitter', but what does that mean?"

"Oh, we're just getting started," Bucky said with relish.

Steve had taken the lead again. "We're going after HYDRA. All of 'em. And we won't stop until we put a stop to them."

"_And_," added Dugan cheerfully, "we help out elsewhere, where we can. HYDRA, the Nazis, they've all gotta go."

"I couldn't agree more," Alice sighed. "Though I can hardly imagine a world without them now, it's been so long."

"I can," Morita replied. "We'll all get to go home and do what we want to do again, instead of dealing with their bullshit."

Alice smiled and found herself glancing at Steve and Bucky. What would their lives be like, if they succeeded in defeating HYDRA? It felt strange picturing it. "And what would that look like for you, Morita?" she asked.

"Get back to Fresno, get my parents back."

She opened her mouth to ask a bewildered question, but then figured out the answer a second later. Steve had told her about the internment camps months ago. Her face shadowed.

Morita stepped over a fallen log. "Then… I don't know." He shrugged. "Thought about maybe running for government. Helping people."

That got a few raised eyebrows, but Alice nodded slowly. It made sense to her.

"I'm going to go back to New York and marry the _hell _outta my girl," Dugan added. The rest of them all groaned, as if this were not the first time they'd heard about this, and Alice smiled.

The rest of them chimed in with what they wanted to do after the war: Dernier told them in a lot of detail about his plan to help put Marseilles back together and then have ten children, Gabe shyly admitted he wanted to go back to college, and Falsworth said that he wanted a 'quiet life' but the rest of them all started crowing that he'd likely be knighted by the king and they'd have to start calling him _Sir Falsworth._

Bucky had strategically dropped back to retie his bootlaces when his turn came around, and then to Alice's surprise, instead of asking Steve, Gabe turned to her.

"How about you, Ms, er-"

"Alice is fine," she allowed. "_Al_, if you're not sure about our company."

"Alice," he said, flashing a small smile. "Will you keep singing, after the war? You're from Vienna, right?"

She felt a few eyes on her as they all strode over a small stream and wound back into the forest. "I'm _from _a few places," she said consideringly. "I love a lot of things about Vienna. I have friends there, people I trust with my life. I went to university there, and I own a house." She paused. "But I already know where I'm going after the war. Brooklyn." She glanced over at Steve and Bucky, who walked beside each other now. "You're both going back to Brooklyn, right?" They nodded. "Then yes, Brooklyn."

A few of the others raised their eyebrows. Steve _beamed._

Dugan cocked an eyebrow. "So I got the impression that you guys knew each other well, but all you've said is that you met in Brooklyn. And these two," he jerked his head at Steve and Bucky, "have never mentioned you to us before, and seem to have thought you were a Nazi. But now it's like nothing happened. I feel like there's a story there."

Steve met Alice's eyes, pink-cheeked.

Bucky snorted under his breath. "There's a few stories there, yeah." He took mercy on his nosy men. "We all met at school."

"That long ago, huh?" mused Morita.

Alice grinned. "The first time I ever saw Steve he was twelve years old and the smallest kid in our class, but he was standing up and telling off our teacher for bullying one of our classmates."

"Got five strikes on the back of the knuckles with a ruler for that," Steve muttered, eyeing the back of his hand. The men laughed.

"Sounds like you, Cap," snorted Dugan.

"Maybe so, but the same week Alice got that teacher _fired._"

"What? How?" came the exclamations. Alice glared at Steve.

"I still don't really know," Steve said, shaking his head as he held back a branch for Falsworth. "But she slipped out, and then minutes later the principal came to our class, saw our teacher bullying that same student, and he was gone the next day. And no one else noticed that Alice had done it."

"It was all just… careful timing," Alice winked. The same answer she'd always given Steve.

"And then," Bucky added, "the first time _I _met Alice she was crying her eyes out after a school bully tossed her new book in a puddle-"

"I was not _crying my eyes out-_"

"Then the very next day we came up to find the bully doing the same thing, tried to stop him, and then-"

"Got yourself punched in the nose," Alice cut in, eyebrows raised.

"Yes," Bucky acknowledged with a ghost of his old grin on his face, "and after that we realized she'd put itching powder on the book and the whole lot of those bullies were itching themselves raw." He laughed along with everyone else. "That Russel boy had a swollen face for a _week._"

"Yes," Alice added with a note of triumph, "but how does _that _compare with smuggling three teenagers into a speakeasy _during prohibition_?"

They shared stories from their childhood for the next hour as they all hiked along the river edge, laughing as the rest of the men chimed in with some stories of their own. Bucky had already told them stories about Steve's smaller days, but Alice added color to them, describing the boy she'd known from memory. Steve seemed a little startled to hear her fond, extremely detailed descriptions.

When they paused at a bend in the river to scarf down some rations for lunch (they all shared generously with Alice, to her relief), Alice found her good mood turning sallow. All the talk of their childhoods had reminded her of how simple things used to be.

Steve sensed her mood change. He approached and leaned on a wide, flat rock next to her, chewing jerky, but didn't ask her what was wrong. He knew that would never work.

After a few moments of silent eating as the rest of the men needled Falsworth with embarrassing questions about his childhood, Alice let out a sigh.

"I've told you so many lies," she murmured to Steve. "I broke promises I made to you."

"What promises?" he asked softly.

"I remembered just now – at school, I promised I'd always tell you my plans."

Steve nodded slowly. "I remember."

For a few long moments they sat in silence.

"I never wanted to be a liar with you," Alice said, her eyes on the cold rushing water of the river.

If she'd been looking at Steve's face, she would have seen the complicated twist of emotions that wracked his expression. Finally, he said: "You aren't. You don't have to be, anyway. Neither of us could have expected what the world would become and what we'd need to do. So how about instead of telling me your plans…" he cast around, thinking. "Tell me what _matters. _How you feel and what you want. Because you might be good at lying, Alice, but I know you're always honest."

Alice glanced over at him, eyebrow quirked.

He shrugged. "You've never lied to me to benefit yourself, only to protect other people, and I know you've avoided lying at all where you can. So you don't have to tell me everything, because I know you can't. But just…"

"Be honest," she finished. It didn't make the most sense in the world, but she _understood. _Because mostly when she spun a lie, it didn't feel like a lie – because she did it to twist Nazis into believing her so she could bring them down from within, or to protect someone who couldn't protect themselves. It felt _right_, no matter how terrifying. Steve wanted her honesty, and she knew she could do that without a second's hesitation.

"I'll promise you the same," Steve said with his usual brand of earnest seriousness.

Alice held out her hand, and they shook on it.

"Very normal. Very _professional_," Bucky said as he walked past them with a hard crust of bread hanging from his mouth, and for a moment Alice could pretend that everything was the way it used to be.

* * *

After lunch they had to cross a lower, flatter region dotted with farms to get across to the wilderness of the next mountain range. A few roads criss-crossed through the farmland. At the edge of each road they hunkered in the trees, sitting in silence for a few minutes to listen for engines before darting across the road.

As they neared the mountain range they came to an olive grove, the trees stark and bare given the season and neatly spaced along the grassy slope.

"Tricky for cover, but I think we can manage it," muttered Bucky to Steve.

"Wait," Alice said. They all naturally encircled her when they walked through exposed areas, so they all turned in to look at her. "I… it could be nothing, but I've heard of the Wehrmacht leaving mines in olive groves in this area." Her brow furrowed at the memory. "We're not very close to the front lines, but-"

Steve nodded. "We'll go around."

The men instantly turned and began skirting the edge of the olive grove, darting from tree to tree and blurring their silhouettes in the hazy afternoon shadows. Bucky walked backwards, his eyes on the seemingly-abandoned church a few miles away. Alice kept pace with them, contemplating the surprise she felt. They'd trusted her so instantly and so completely based on nothing but a rumor she'd heard. She sensed a few of the men glancing at her, but realized after a second of worry that they didn't eye her with suspicion – there was something like reappraisal in their eyes.

The looks were explained once they'd all disappeared into the thick treeline of the mountains again. They'd paused for a moment to catch their breath after the stressful dash across exposed ground. Falsworth wiped his sleeve over his sweaty brow, then turned to Alice.

"I don't get it," he said in a considering voice. "How do you go from a music student in Vienna to…" he gestured at her. "You know, what you're doing now?"

Alice opened her mouth, then closed it. "It didn't happen overnight," she said a little self-consciously. "I guess I've just been doing what I can. Back when I was a kid, that extended to pranking people. But… I can do a whole lot more than pranks, now."

"What sort of stuff _do _you do?" asked Morita. Alice shot him a sideways glance, and he held up his hands. "Classified, I know. But I don't get how you know what you do - how'd you find out about the spy? How'd you know about the mined olive groves?" His tone wasn't accusatory, just curious. The other men seemed equally curious. "Up until _he _showed up" – Morita gestured to Steve – "our jobs in the war were to go where we were told and shoot stuff until the other guys backed off. We get a bit more creative these days, but I guess I don't know where a singer comes in, in a war."

Steve let out a sigh, ready to step in to protect Alice's promises of confidentiality, but she cleared her throat.

"The singing is my weapon, in a way," she said softly. "It doesn't kill or wound, but it makes people let down their guard. They think because I make them feel things with my voice that they understand me, and that they can trust me. And the job itself is very mobile. I can go from Himmler's dining room to a makeshift stage at the Italian front, and no one bats an eye. Everyone's so busy listening to me that they don't notice me listening to them."

"Like a Siren," said Gabe contemplatively. Everyone turned to him and he looked faintly embarrassed. "I just mean… sirens in the stories are hunters, right? They use their voices to lure their prey to their deaths."

Alice laughed humorlessly. "I've thought about that a lot," she murmured. "That's the name they gave me, and I know they meant it as some kind of praise for my voice, but… it feels appropriate."

"She's good with codes, too," Steve said with a note of pride. Alice smiled at him.

"_Tu en parles comme si c'était facile_," [_You talk about it like it's easy_], Dernier added in rapid French, "_Mais vous voyagez sur des terres ravagées par la guerre et parlez à certaines des personnes les plus dangereuses d'Europe._" [_But you travel war-torn land and talk with some of the most dangerous people in Europe._]

"_J'ai eu ma part d'éraflures_," [_I've had my share of scrapes_] she replied. Her throat tightened and she turned back to Morita. "War is about guns, and soldiers pushing back and forth across land, but it's also about… resources, and politics, and most of all _information._"

Morita still looked dubious.

Alice sighed and thought. "Well… hang on, you're the ones who liberated that village on the west coast from HYDRA, right?"

Morita and the others paused, then nodded.

Alice spread her arms meaningfully. "How'd you know they were there in the first place?"

Gabe responded: "The SSR's got a map with all the HYDRA pins…" he trailed off, eyes widening.

Steve shook his head, thinking of all the pins on that map. He wondered how many were there thanks to Alice.

"You're not supposed to meet me," Alice told Morita. "I'm meant to be the nameless, faceless voice who points the way for you." She shook her head. "Though I can't say I'm sorry to have met you all."

"You ain't scared?" asked Dugan. They were all tightening their straps and relacing their boots again, preparing to leave.

"Aren't you?" Alice asked softly. They all went quiet.

Steve made a silent gesture, and they began heading north through the forest.

Bucky broke the silence. "I hate the idea of you doing all this alone," he muttered, shifting his weapon.

"If I'd been alone I never would have got here," she said in surprise. "It's not just me, Bucky. It's… there's whole groups, whole _networks _of people who know this isn't right. I didn't just do it all myself. I'm part of something a whole lot bigger."

"But that doesn't make you safe," Bucky insisted.

"Nobody's safe anymore."

* * *

Excerpt from '_Italy: The Rise and Fall of Tyrants' _by Amber Bates (2003), p. 382:

_Come 1943, what had been a nation strongly in support of the Nazi regime became a messy battlefield of ideologies. After the Allied invasion of Sicily in July of 1943, and the subsequent shift in power (Mussolini was deposed, imprisoned, freed by the Germans, and then set up a pro-Nazi puppet government in the north), the Germans had total control over all non-Allied regions of Italy. They and their Italian allies committed atrocities against the civilian population, prompting resistance movements to spring up against them._

_This period became known as the Italian Civil War - the Kingdom of Italy in the south and the Italian Resistance, versus Mussolini's 'Italian Social Republic'. And on either side were the Allied and Axis powers, struggling over every inch of land, as well as the independent and sinister HYDRA division complicating matters. The Civil War did not come to an end until the last Wehrmacht force in Italy surrendered at the end of the World War._

* * *

After another long slog through the mountainside which left Alice with swollen feet and aching legs, they settled down to make camp long after night had fallen. The others had kept chatting as they walked, but as the day dragged on Alice fell further and further into silence. After so many months of covertness, talking outright about what she did and how she felt had drained her.

They stopped on a hill overlooking a low valley. The wind howled through, icy and cutting, and after fighting with the canvas sheets for a while they all agreed that there was no point setting up the tents – though it was windy, the night sky didn't threaten rain. Alice chewed and swallowed her share of the rations, shivering, and feebly tried to resist when each of Steve's men found another layer for her to wear; Dugan had an extra coat rolled up at the bottom of his pack, and the others offered their tent canvases for her to wrap herself in.

Morita, Dugan, and Gabe were taking shifts at watch that night, so when Alice lay down on the grassy, windy hill to sleep, she rolled over to see Steve lying beside her. Not so close to be considered indecent, but close enough that she could see his eyes.

Swaddled like a baby, exhausted from a day of walking and emotional conversations, Alice smiled tiredly at him. Steve smiled back.

"We're going to be okay," he murmured. She didn't know whether he meant sleeping without tents, or hiking through Nazi-occupied Italy, or the entire war, but the assurance in his voice made her feel slightly warmer.

"I know," she whispered back. She burrowed her chin further into her layers to hide from the cold. She wanted to curl into him, to wrap her arms around him and pretend that the rest of the world didn't exist, but they had company and she wasn't sure she had enough energy to move. "Sleep well, Steve." Her eyes drifted shut. She felt him still watching her.

"Sleep well, Alice."

* * *

They set off before dawn again the next day. Alice felt fit to growl when she woke up to stiff limbs and aching muscles, but then Steve helped unwrap the layers of canvas swaddling her and gave her half his rations (which made Bucky tut and force Steve to eat some of _his_), and she found herself in a suddenly very good mood.

They'd made good progress yesterday, even with Alice slowing them down, and after a glance at the map Morita estimated they'd be at their extraction point in two more days. The terrain would get trickier with less thick wilderness to hide in, but they had enough rations to last and they'd made it through incident free so far.

Alice stood with her hands stuffed in her armpits, breathing puffs of condensation in the dim grey dawn light as Steve and Bucky fixed on a heading. Alice watched Steve turning with the compass in his palm and smiled to herself.

"Alright, let's move," Bucky eventually called in a low voice, and they all trudged off once more.

Alice, who had two tent rolls over her shoulder now (if Bucky had noticed her carrying his tent, he hadn't mentioned it), winced at her stiff, swollen feet as she drew level with Steve. She could barely see a thing, but she sensed Steve smiling down at her. She turned her face up to where she thought his was and smiled back.

"Hi," she whispered. The dawn air was quiet save for the sounds of feet crunching over gravel and birds calling.

"Hi," he whispered back. "Sleep okay?"

"I slept very well."

They smiled at each other in the darkness.

Someone cleared their throat behind them, and after jumping slightly Alice peered back to make out the bulky shape of Dum-Dum. Forcibly resisting the blush that threatened to rise to her cheeks, she turned back around and silently followed Falsworth. She stayed by Steve's side, though.

Occasionally their hands brushed together, and as dawn light crept across the sky she found she had the perfect position to sneak glances across at him. _I'm just trying to get used to the new shape of him_, she told herself. But more often than not she found herself looking at the part of him that had changed the least: his face.

More often than not, she found him looking back at her.

When the sun well and truly hung in the sky, and after what had to be the hundredth darting glance between Steve and Alice, Dugan cleared his throat again. He'd been walking behind them through the thick, craggy forest.

"So," he said loudly, glancing between them. Behind him, Bucky looked up. "I'm trying to figure out the dynamic here. I know you've all been separate a while, but… Cap, did you two used to be sweethearts or something?"

Steve went violently red as the other men snorted or laughed behind their hands, as if they'd been wanting to ask the same thing. Alice managed to hide her embarrassment and keep her face calm, but then she caught a glimpse of Bucky's grin and she scowled.

"Leave them alone, Dugan," Falsworth sighed wearily from the front of the pack. "You well know that it's none of your business."

"Maybe not, but there's no harm in questions," Dugan replied innocently. "Go on, Cap, Ms Moser-"

"Alice," she interrupted.

"_Alice._ Is that what's had you all up in knots since you saw each other? You used to be sweet on each other?"

Alice's gaze bored into Dugan's, and after a few moments he actually looked down, seeming a little embarrassed.

Silence rang out. Steve had ducked his head, shooting quick glances at Alice to gauge her reaction, and the other men watched them with blatant amusement on their faces.

"You can see why they'd be confused, Steve," Bucky said purposefully, even as he swung around to cast an eye over the forest. "Y'know, seeing as how you and I told them about those double dates we went on back home-"

Steve cast a guilty glance at Alice – as if he ever needed to feel guilty. She shot him a quick smile.

Bucky wasn't done, though. "And you _did _agree to go dancing with Agent Carter-"

"It's not what you think," Steve said quickly, eyes on Alice. The other men chortled again, and Steve shot a glare at Bucky (as he did, he thought back to when they'd been sixteen and Bucky had convinced Steve to ask out Holly Barker for the entire purpose of making Alice jealous). His head whipped back to Alice. "I-"

"I don't think anything," she replied smoothly, features suddenly careful, and the memory of Peggy saying almost exactly that when she'd caught him with Phillips' secretary made him shift uneasily.

The laughter around them had quietened some, and after another few moments of awkward silence between Steve and Alice, Bucky cleared his throat. "Hey Falsworth, I'll take the lead for a while, we're coming up on another valley here. The rest of you lot, keep close." He strode forward, shifting his weapon in his hands, and as he passed Steve he clapped him on the shoulder. "You take the rear, pal. Watch our backs." He slipped past with a quick glance at Alice. "You can help him, troublemaker."

He'd made it painfully obvious, but Alice had to admit his reshuffling had worked: suddenly she and Steve were left at the back of the pack, a few feet behind everyone else. They all crested a ridge, wary for a moment as they surveyed the valley below, then began working down a slope slippery with shale.

Steve's boots were sure on the rock. "Alice, what Bucky was saying, I-"

"Steve, it's really-"

"No, I…" he huffed a breath, reaching up to scratch a finger under his cowl. He looked sweaty. "I want to set the record straight. After I read that _New York Times _article, I…" he shook his head. "Well, after a while Bucky said I needed to get out there and meet new people. And I did try, but what with the war and… and _you_, it just didn't feel right."

Alice listened silently, her eyes on her boots.

"Then…" Steve sounded hesitant. "There might've been something with Peggy."

Alice's gaze lifted, but not to Steve. She looked straight ahead, her face rigid.

Steve sighed. "Nothing happened," he murmured. "She's great, you know that, and Bucky'd been filling my head with-"

The shale under her feet slipped a little, and Alice set a hand on Steve's arm. "Steve, you don't need to explain yourself to me." She didn't _want _to be jealous, these feelings were ridiculous. And yet she couldn't help the slight twinge of hurt hearing him talk about Peggy like that.

He let out a frustrated sigh, even as he paused to make sure she was steady on her feet. "What I _want _to say is that… I know this is all complicated, and crazy, but all the things I said back in Brooklyn… I still mean them."

Alice swallowed tightly. She still couldn't look at him. "Me too," she murmured. She pondered her traitorous feelings. "But really, if anyone should be explaining themselves, it's me."

He frowned at her. "What do you mean?"

Up ahead, Dugan nearly pitched headlong down the slope and just managed to steady himself, swearing loudly and profusely until Dernier hit his arm.

Alice couldn't even smile at the sight. "In the article, you must have seen… there was…"

Steve's eyes widened with comprehension. "The officer."

Alice's jaw clenched. "Kurt. I dated him for a few months because he's Reinhard Heydrich's nephew, and through him I was able to get access to the Reich Main Security Office and Heinrich Himmler's house. But I… it's not an excuse, but I hope you know that I was never… it wasn't about romance-"

She almost flinched when she felt Steve take her hand, and they both stopped walking. She glanced over at him to see him watching her with an emotion so strong that it made her breath catch. "I get it now," he said roughly. He leaned in and wrapped his arms around her where they stood on the rocky hillside.

Alice closed her eyes, melting in the warmth he exuded. Embracing him like this felt supremely bizarre – he was so much _taller _than her, her head now able to rest easily on his shoulder and his arms wrapping comfortingly around her. She couldn't wrap her arms completely around him in return because of the shield, so had to settle for resting her palms on the strange metal.

She felt a pang of loss for the small, thin-limbed boy she was used to hugging, but she couldn't deny that this was extremely comfortable.

She didn't realize she'd forgotten what they'd even been talking about until Steve pulled her tighter and murmured: "You don't have to explain yourself to me either, Alice."

Reluctantly, she pulled away. "But you deserve more than silence from me. I should have known my secrets would hurt the people I love."

"Like we said," Steve said with a small smile. "We'll be honest with each other from here on out." A chill wind blew up the hillside, catching stray strands of hair poking out from under Alice's cap. Steve still held her hands, and his eyes were flicking over her face. Alice glanced down the hill at the other men – they were nearly at the base of the hill, about to curve around the mountainside out of sight. Surely they wouldn't notice if Alice and Steve-

But Steve wasn't thinking along the same lines as her, clearly. When she glanced back, he looked conflicted.

"Uh, in the interests of total honesty, I'd better tell you… in London I might've…" he scowled, but seemed to be directing the expression at himself. "I might've kissed a woman working for Colonel Phillips."

Alice eyed him narrowly. "You _have _been busy." He looked suddenly alarmed, and Alice laughed at the expression. "It's fine," she reassured him. "Things get complicated when one of us thinks the other is a Nazi, I understand." His hands tightened on hers. "Just don't kiss her again."

"No fear of that," said Steve quickly, his eyes fixed on her face.

Alice's teasing smile softened, became more genuine. If it weren't for the funny cowl on his head and the men at the bottom of the hill whose noise drifted up on the breeze, Alice could have pretended that this scene held some semblance of normality: she and Steve standing on a hillside in the fresh breeze, hand in hand, looking into each other's eyes and daring the other to be brave.

Steve's eyes were bright in the sunshine as he looked down at her, as if he couldn't believe she was standing in front of him, and he had a smile growing on his face.

Alice decided that she was plenty brave enough, and stretched up on her toes-

A low whistle pierced the air, and she thudded back onto her heels so suddenly that Steve had to grip her elbow to steady her. They both looked down the hill to see Bucky waving from the edge of where the mountain curved away out of sight. He made a very pointed gesture. _Come here._

Without another word Alice and Steve jogged and slid down the rest of the hill, only releasing each other's hands once they reached the bottom. Only Bucky waited for them – Alice could just see the other men around the rockface, hunkering down low.

"What is it?" Steve asked urgently. His whole body language had changed: tense, his center of gravity centered, eyes sharp. Alice felt his alertness spark hers.

Bucky jerked his head. "That village you and Morita flagged on the map for us to avoid. It's just round there in the other valley, like you said, but…" his brow furrowed. "You'll see."

Steve took the lead, crouching as he rounded the bend of the steep rockface. Alice made to follow him, but Bucky put a hand on her arm and shook his head. She couldn't see _anything _from here, just Dugan's leg and Gabe's back.

After a few moments Steve called in a low voice: "Let's check it out."

After a moment of hesitation, Bucky let go of Alice's arm. "Stay close to me."

She touched the knife at her belt for courage.

The instant they rounded the rockface, Alice saw the problem. They'd anticipated passing by this village, intending to slip through the forest around it unseen. But this wasn't simple, quietly bustling small civilization Alice had imagined.

Even from the top of the rise, Alice could see that the village had been utterly abandoned. A large portion of it had been burned, leaving blackened and crumbling walls, and even from afar it was plain no one had lived here in a while. She spotted a fox slinking along one of the streets.

Alice stared as she followed Steve and his men down toward the village, creeping through the trees beside the cart path. When they approached, Bucky and Steve made Alice hang back with Gabe for company as they rest of them infiltrated the burned and abandoned buildings. Finally, though, they allowed Alice and Gabe to join them.

"No one here," Dugan muttered grimly, though he still looked around warily.

Instead of taking the long way around the village they instead walked through it on their way, closely packed together and their eyes sharp. Alice stared around. She knew that the fighting hadn't come to this area yet – it _couldn't _have – and yet it was clear there'd been violence here. Things were left scattered as if the inhabitants had left in a hurry: carts lying abandoned, doors half open, a dropped book. As they strode in deeper, Alice started noticing the bullet holes in the buildings.

She could see how this would have been a quiet, supportive place to live: the village was bordered on three sides by high, climbing mountains, and on the other side the landscape tapered down a valley, leading toward further civilization. There couldn't have been more than two hundred inhabitants, going off the number of houses. They probably lived off the land, farmed the surrounding area and sold their excess produce in larger towns.

But it was clear nobody had lived here in months.

"You didn't hear anything about this place?" Bucky asked Alice when they reached the main square. There were a few cars here, covered in twigs and leaves and looking rusty.

Alice shook her head. "No." Her eyes snagged on a child's bike lying on its side. Weeds had grown through the spokes. "But… it's not unheard of for small settlements like these to be attacked by the army as they make their way through, or… it could be this was a mostly Jewish village." She left the result of _that _scenario unsaid. She'd never seen a place like this before, but the rumors in France and Poland had described such things happening.

Steve's men were so close around Alice that their uniforms brushed against her arms. She peered out between the gaps, shuddering at the eerie emptiness of the village around them.

"Let's not stay long," Steve murmured, sounding disturbed. Alice could just see the back of his uniform – and she noted that he'd taken his shield off and had it mounted on his forearm, leading the way.

They filed together out of the village. Alice looked back just once, to see the abandoned buildings get swallowed up by the trees. She wondered how long it would be until another person set foot there.

* * *

They walked another hour in relative silence, following the jagged ridge of the mountains ever north. They'd decided to travel at a lower altitude, to avoid the perils of the steep slopes and sudden cliffs, and thought they were very clever indeed until they stumbled onto yet another olive grove.

"Let's circle around," Steve decided, his eyes flicking over the neatly-curated rows of olive trees, and they obeyed silently. They no longer walked in such a tight pack, so Alice could roam freely as long as she didn't walk ahead of Steve or behind Bucky.

They'd made it halfway along the length of the grove, just inside the treeline, when a rustle of movement ahead drew everyone's attention.

Instantly, they all stopped dead.

Ahead of them, the old man wearing dark slacks and a dirt-stained shirt rolled up to his elbows stopped dead as well.

The man looked weather-beaten and sunburned, his skin a dark, leathery brown with deep wrinkles creasing his face and a faded hat perched on his head. From his general dirtiness and the two large bags of what looked like mulch that he'd dropped on the ground, Alice supposed he was a farmer.

For almost a minute, the farmer and the 107th Tactical Team stared at each other. Alice saw the farmer's eyes flicking over them all, taking in the half-raised weapons, Alice's slight, unarmed frame (thank goodness she was still dressed as Al), before coming to rest on Steve's uniform and shield.

Birds whistled in the olive grove. The men around Alice were waiting for Steve's lead, but he did not move or speak.

Slowly, the farmer ahead of them reached up to scratch his head. "_I miei occhi sono così cattivi in questi giorni_," he muttered. With that, he picked up his mulch bags, turned, and walked off into the olive grove.

A second later, everyone turned to Alice.

She opened her mouth. "I think he said… he said he has bad eyes."

Everyone turned to Steve. He seemed to be weighing Alice's words. He turned, watching the retreating back of the farmer, and then let out a breath. "Let's go."

Dugan shifted his feet. "But-"

"We're not murdering civilians," Steve said firmly, putting words to what each of them had, if only briefly, considered. "Especially not ones with bad eyes." With a lighter glance at Alice, Steve turned again and marched off into the treeline. He didn't have to glance back to make sure they were following.

Relieved, the whole lot of them disappeared into the forest once more.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Memories of a German Italy_', a memoir by Luca Ricci, 12 September 1992:

_I was only a boy during the war, but it was clear to even me that the world had descended into madness. Those were hard years. We were luckier than most, as we had food and a roof over our heads. But we had a front row seat as the war progressed: the increasing rise of fascism, the influx of German troops, and the chaos during and after 1943. I had never seen such violence before those years, and nor have I seen its like since._

_The Allies swept past our olive farm in May of 1944, and though after that we were still afraid for our country, we no longer feared for our lives. We saw armies and generals march past under half a dozen different flags._

_..._

_My father used to tell us that he'd once seen Captain America and the Howling Commandos in his olive grove. That's the kind of reputation they had: they could be anywhere and everywhere, miles into Nazi territory and out before you knew they were there. I was always doubtful of this story, but I never knew my father to lie to anyone. Well, aside from the Nazis._

* * *

They stopped to eat lunch at the top of a rocky incline, where the ice wind whistled through the air and they had a view of the white snow clinging to the mountain peaks further up. This place felt desolate and far removed from the rest of the world, even though they could see the greener landscape below.

Bucky told Steve he was going to get a look at their route down and walked away from the group, and Alice took her chance. She slipped away and stole after him.

She found Bucky lying on a rocky outcrop, peering through his rifle scope at the terrain below. He didn't appear to have noticed Alice approaching, but when she sat down beside him as she spooned cold, pre-packaged meat and vegetables into her mouth from a tin, he did not react.

For a few moments, Alice watched him. He lay prostrate and utterly still, his eyes focused as he peered through the scope. He hadn't reacted to her presence but he'd clearly been aware of her as soon as she came near. There was tension between his shoulders, and his face was shadowed, hard.

"So when are you going to tell someone what happened in that HYDRA base?" she asked.

He slid her a sideways look, then returned to his scope. "I submitted my report to the SSR right after Steve got us out."

Alice didn't blink. "Right. So when are you going to tell someone what really happened?" She cocked her head. "You're different. Something happened."

"There's a war on, you know," he muttered.

"I noticed. And I know war affects everyone differently, but Bucky… I know something happened."

He gave up on the scope and sat up, holding her gaze for a long moment before he let out an annoyed sigh. "You are… very irritating. You know that?"

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. But then she scooted closer, dragging her tin across the rock until she and Bucky sat side-by-side, knees touching, the valley below them. She didn't speak again. She could sense Bucky thinking.

The wind whistled over them, making Alice's eyes water.

Bucky sighed. "I ain't ready, Al."

She nodded. "That's okay."

"And Steve'd just… worry." He chewed the inside of his cheek, eyes darting.

"He worries anyway," Alice said softly. "You don't have to tell him first, if there's someone else you'd be more comfortable with. One of your men, maybe, or Agent Carter, or-"

"Or you?"

Alice turned and met his eyes. "I might not be here when you're ready."

"You'd be good, though. You wouldn't…" he shook his head.

"Steve might surprise you," she said gently. "I know you don't want to worry him, but he's stronger than either of us give him credit for."

"I'm not talking about the kind of strength that comes out of a bottle."

"Neither am I."

More silence passed. Bucky seemed to be considering Alice's words, turning his rifle scope over in his hands.

She was admiring the way the forest clung to the ridges of the mountainside when Bucky spoke again.

"I'm worried about you two."

"Why?"

"'M worried you're not going to make things right. I know how you both feel, I think, and I know you must've made up, but I'm worried-"

"We'll be okay," Alice smiled, thinking of how the Bucky she'd known would never have spoken so earnestly about this. "We've talked. Sort of."

"I'm also worried it's not going to matter," he continued as if she hadn't spoken. His eyes were dark. "Steve might be living in denial but I know what's going to happen when we get to the end here; you're going to go right back into the lion's den, and we're going to right back into pitching ourselves headfirst into danger. We might never see you again."

Alice listened quietly, her hands resting in her lap. She knew Bucky was right, but it was still disturbing to hear it.

"I want you both gone," Bucky said, his eyes hard. "Far away from here. But somehow the two of you have become… so important. To the war."

Alice reached over and took his hand. It was cold. "You're right. We don't know what's going to happen next. But we're together now, and we know where we stand. And knowing us, we're going to do everything we can to end the war and make our way back to each other. Steve and I are going to be okay. We're used to loving from a distance, not that we like it, and we…" her mind boggled at the thought of it. "We're going to end up together. I think."

"That's a scary thought," Bucky said, though he was smiling.

"Things will change," she said. "But you'll still be there, annoying us no doubt."

"And you'll still be a troublemaker." He kissed the top of her head, and she smiled at the memory of him kissing his sister's heads every time he left the house. "And if I don't make it-"

"I don't suffer that kind of talk, Sergeant," she murmured, and he cut himself off with a twisted smile.

They sat for a few more moments, hand in hand, watching the valley below. Alice could see the route they'd take down the mountain, and how the forest stretched north toward their goal.

When Bucky spoke next, his voice was amused and pitched a little louder. "Don't worry, Steve, I ain't stealing your girl."

Alice blinked and looked around. Steve stood behind them, one hand on a bare tree trunk as if he'd just come up to check on them. She saw a flash of remaining hesitation on his face as he watched them before it became a genuine smile.

Alice couldn't help but smile back at him, then turned to glare at Bucky. "I'm not capable of being stolen."

"Steve managed," he replied as they climbed off the rock to walk over to Steve.

Steve laughed. "If anything, she stole me."

"That's right," Alice said, leaning up to accept a quick peck on the lips from him – it sent a thrill right down to her toes, and Bucky snorted. They'd silently agreed not to acknowledge what was between them in front of the rest of the men, but Bucky was safe. "I hoodwinked you into caring about me, and I'm going to abduct you from everything and everyone you've ever known. Just pluck you off the face of the earth."

"Sounds alright by me," Steve replied with a dorky grin. He took her hand. Together, they walked back to the rest of the men, and Alice and Steve didn't release each other's hands until the last possible moment.

* * *

"Wait," Bucky said abruptly an hour later as they all walked in file down the mountainside. He wheeled to shoot Alice a round-eyed glance. "You were in a _movie_!"

"Must we keep talking about me?" Alice asked in a long-suffering tone.

"You were," Steve chimed in, looking over his shoulder with a smile. "An actual movie?"

"You're a movie star?" exclaimed Dugan.

"It was a _Nazi _movie," Alice corrected. "It was terrible. At the end of the movie the Germans won the Battle of Stalingrad. Utter rubbish. I wouldn't have done it if Otto hadn't insisted." She shook her head forcefully, almost dislodging the tents she carried. "If all goes to plan, that movie will be condemned to the trashheap of history where it belongs."

She felt the men around her raise their eyebrows.

"Steve's been in movies too," Bucky said unhelpfully.

Alice's eyes widened and she stared at Steve. She could only see a sliver of his face, since he walked in front of her, but it was clear his cheeks were glowing.

"Not long ones," he protested. "Just the little ones they play before an actual feature film. They… were not particularly good either. Mostly because of me."

"I saw one of 'em on furlough!" Gabe piped up. "It wasn't half bad, but the part at the end where you stopped mid-fight to talk about how you couldn't win without people back home buying war bonds was a little unrealistic."

Surprisingly, Alice found herself joining the others in their peals of laughter. Steve shot them all an annoyed, embarrassed look, but eventually he smiled too.

"One day," Alice promised, "we'll watch those movies."

* * *

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Image: A colorful Captain America shield with a film reel icon in place of the star.

Text: _Avengers Special! In honor of the recent victory in Manhattan, this Thursday we're hosting a Vintage Movie Marathon... of all the Old Captain America films. Original USO films and archival footage starring Steve Rogers himself, followed by a selection of the ten best films based on Captain America. This will be a three day event! See below for details._

* * *

Later that afternoon, Steve found an excuse to walk beside Alice and murmured: "You've mentioned the name _Otto _a few times. Is… is he another…?'

"No," Alice said, reaching for Steve's hand. "_Otto _is… my manager, and my handler. And you needn't worry about him, he's in love with someone else."

"Oh? Is she-"

"He." She allowed Steve a moment to adjust, and then he simply nodded. "He's… gone."

* * *

That night they made camp deep in the dense forest. Alice battled with setting up Bucky and Steve's tents, and returned to the new firepit to find them all sitting around it, urging Gabe on in cajoling voices.

"I can't!" Gabe said, waving them off in embarrassment. "Not in front of _the Siren_!"

Alice took a seat on the log they'd dragged into their cramped clearing. She scratched a finger under her cap, wincing at her greasy hair, and eyed the men as they all peppered Gabe with some version of _oh, go on! _"What's going on?"

"_Gabe chante parfois pour nous. Mais il est un lâche,_" [_Gabe usually sings for us. But he is being a coward_] explained Dernier, scowling at his friend.

Gabe covered his face with his hands, shaking his head.

"Oh, go on," Alice said with a smile. "You saw me slip in the mud today, that can't have been less embarrassing than singing a song. And there's no one around for miles." The forest was so dense that even if there was, they'd likely never notice the eight people camped around the glowing coals.

"Imagine if we never sang in front of you, growing up," Bucky said as he handed Alice her share of the rations for the night. "You'd never have gotten to hear my dulcet tones."

Steve snorted, but when Bucky arched his eyebrows he just tucked back into his food innocently.

Gabe let out a sigh and pulled his hands away from his face. "Alright, alright. What d'you want to hear, then?" he scowled around at his fellow soldiers.

"Something English," Falsworth said, "enough of your American garbling."

"Hear, hear," toasted Dernier, grinning as he used a phrase he'd learned from his friends.

Gabe sat, his hands pressed between his knees as he thought, before blowing out a breath and clearing his throat. "Alright. This is your fault for not packing the radio," he said to Dugan, then rolled his neck as if preparing for battle.

"_There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover_," he began, nervously, in a lovely baritone. He tapped the slow rhythm on the side of his leg. "_Tomorrow, just you wait and see._"

Alice knew this song: she'd heard it in Switzerland last year, since British victory songs weren't exactly popular in the Reich. She'd heard a woman singing it on the radio, and hearing it in Gabe's low, youthful voice was a pleasant difference.

"_I'll never forget the people I met, braving those angry skies,_" Gabe sang, a little surer now, and around the fire pit men settled back, tucking into their food and watching Gabe approvingly. "_I remember well, as the shadows fell_," Alice smiled at the way he brought down the key, "_the light of hope in their eyes._"

Steve watched Alice across the firepit, noticing that she'd forgotten her dinner and was rapidly growing absorbed by the song. She always did this – her life might have become one of secrets and violence, but it made his heart warm to see that she was still utterly head over heels for music.

"_And though I'm far away, I still can hear them say: thumbs up!_" Gabe held his thumb up the way the RAF commanders did to signal permission to take off, and a few of the men chuckled. "_But when the dawn comes out…_"

Steve had glanced down to take another spoonful of his tasteless rations, so when he heard Alice's unmistakable, lilting voice weave into the next line he nearly jumped out of his skin.

"_There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover, tomorrow, just you wait and see_."

Alice sang softly, not drowning Gabe out even when he faltered at hearing her voice, adding a high harmony to deepen the song. "_There'll be love and laughter, and peace ever after, tomorrow, when the world is free._"

As Alice and Gabe sang their way through the next verse, Steve sensed that all the men around him had gone very still, listening. Steve himself couldn't take his eyes off Alice. It had been so _long _since he'd heard her sing. It still blew him away just as much as it had when she'd performed for the first time at his church.

Alice and Gabe launched back into the chorus, their voices weaving high and low to make the air vibrate with song. The cold breeze shifting through the forest seemed to grow warm, and the faint glint of stars grew brighter. But then the song faded, and so did the sudden clarity and brightness, and Steve let out the breath he'd been holding.

Alice and Gabe grinned at each other. "Another?" Gabe asked.

Alice nodded.

Throughout the rest of dinner, Gabe and Alice entertained the rest of the 107th Tactical Team with songs set to no music other than the rustling of branches in the night and the _pops _of the fire. Gabe's voice was untrained and yet eager, capable of wringing startling emotion out of the low notes he hit.

They sang through a few Allied victory songs Alice knew, which felt vaguely haunting and yet unbearably hopeful in the midst of occupied territory, then moved on to their favorite songs, with the occasional request from the men around them. The others joined in a few times, but seemed to prefer to listen. Alice finished her dinner as Gabe cheerfully sang _Stardust_, and he seemed content to let her handle _It's Only A Paper Moon _and _A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square_. Self consciously, she even sang a couple of her original songs, especially the ones she'd written for Steve.

Alice had sung for thousands of soldiers, but nothing had ever felt quite as important as this. She couldn't remember the last time she sang for free, for _fun._

And she couldn't help but cast glances at Steve as she sang. She could feel the pride and pleasure rolling off him, but what really made her stomach flutter was the knowledge that he'd be looking at her like that just the same as if she were reading out a book of instructions for an engine part, or sitting in silence.

She liked that about Steve, she always had: her singing didn't seem to enchant him the way it did others. He enjoyed it, and he made sure to tell her so, but it was as if he didn't see the Siren that everyone else did. Just Alice.

Alice sang _Le chant des partisans_, making Dernier jerk with surprise before he launched into exuberantly singing the Resistance song alongside her with a brilliant grin on his face. It was an angry, violent song, very French in its call for resistance, and Dernier finished with his fist raised in the air.

"_Chantez, compagnons!_" [_Sing, companions_!] he roared.

Alice smiled, and then, at a gesture from Gabe for another song, she cast around before thinking of one she'd heard just after the war began, which had made her think of Steve. Shooting him a quick glance, she took a breath that smelled of smoke and soil, then began to sing.

"_I'll be seeing you," _she began, "_in all the old familiar places…_"

It was a nostalgic, hopeful song which lent itself well to a single voice pouring out into the night air. She couldn't bear to look at anyone, let alone Steve, as she sang it. She felt as if the whole world were staring at her, as if she had a giant eye looking down at her. As she drew to toward the end her skin prickled.

"_I'll be looking at the moon_," she sang, almost hoarsely, "_but I'll be seeing you_."

Her last note faded off into silence. Alice knew, abruptly, that she was finished for the night. She'd delved a little too deeply for that song, given away things she hadn't meant to.

She looked up, her breath a little unsteady in her chest, and found them all staring at her.

Gabe sat with his head in his hand, contemplating her, Bucky had a soft, sad smile playing at his mouth, and Steve – Steve's eyes _blazed_, so intense that she had to look away for fear she'd be blinded. Tears glistened on Dugan's cheeks and mustache, and when she met his eyes he reached into his pocket for a ratty handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.

The noise broke the frozen silence a little.

Morita let out a breath and said wonderingly: "I can't believe I thought you were a fella."

Alice laughed, surprised, and Falsworth and Dugan joined in.

Gabe shook his head. "I can't believe I used to listen to you on the radio and now you're singing in the same shitty campsite as me." That earned more laughter, and Gabe blushed. "Er, sorry ma'am."

Steve and Bucky laughed behind their hands.

Alice nodded thoughtfully before replying: "Don't be sorry, this camp is a shithole."

That set them all laughing uproariously. Bucky overset his ration tin, and Alice rolled her eyes even as she smiled at them. Swearing never failed to get any soldier on her side, be they Allied or Axis. Though this time it didn't feel like a tactic. It felt like a joke among friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Billie Holiday's recording of I'll Be Seeing You was the last transmission sent to the Opportunity rover on Mars before its mission ended.  
And if any of you happen to be music historians, I know I'm a ~little~ early for I'll Be Seeing You in 1943 – the song was around, but didn't become hugely popular until 1944. Alice is a music nerd, though, she probably would've heard of it.


	41. Chapter Thirty Two

Alice woke up exhausted. It wasn't even the kind of exhaustion that sleep could cure – it was bone deep, throbbing in her feet and her back and her heart. She'd been allowed to take first watch after arguing with Steve and Bucky for close to half an hour, so had only gotten to sleep past one in the morning after sitting alert and silent a few yards away from the campsite. She now permanently wore Dugan's spare coat, and even in that she'd shivered and chattered her teeth in the deepening cold.

She didn't speak much as she crawled out of the tent, wincing at her stiff and smelly clothes, and rolled up the tent (she'd slept in Dernier's tent tonight, as he'd taken second shift). Once more they started hiking straight away, eating their rations as they went.

Minutes later, it began to snow. Alice flinched at the first cold flake against her face, then glanced up to see flurries drifting down from the slate grey clouds.

"Damn," Steve muttered from ahead. "I hope this doesn't slow us down."

On hearing his voice Alice had a sudden, visceral reaction to tell him to go inside, and then almost laughed aloud. Since middle school she'd been working alongside Bucky to ferry Steve away from danger, particularly from catching colds in winter. She'd told him countless times before: _It's snowing, Steve, let's go inside. _

Eyeing the back of his broad frame and thinking about everything he'd said about Erskine's serum, she supposed he'd never catch a cold again.

They trudged on through the falling snow, their boots kicking through collecting drifts. Alice wrinkled her nose at the feeling of the stuff melting on her face and her cap, turning her head damp. Snow collected on the bare tree branches as they found an old dirt road cutting through the forest and followed it northeast.

"Y'know," Bucky said to Falsworth, running a hand along the sleeve of his navy double-breasted coat. "I've gotta give it to Stark, these things are well and truly waterproof."

"It's just a shame he's such an arrogant knobhead," Alice remarked, damp and cranky.

Bucky glanced over. "You know Stark?"

"Barely. We met once, when I went to visit Erskine in Brooklyn."

That piqued Steve's interest, and as they strode through the snow Alice told them about her training in Brooklyn. They seemed startled by the rigors of her training ("She abandoned you in the middle of _nowhere_?" Steve asked, aghast), but most of the men smiled in recognition as she told them about the drills and annoying commands.

She also told them about her sole visit to Doctor Erskine at the SSR facility. "Now I think about it, they must have been working on Project Rebirth there," she said thoughtfully, and her eyes fell on Steve again. She'd been getting used to his larger frame, but at that moment she had a startling double-vision – she saw him as he was now, but she also saw the small, frail young man she'd known. "I never thought to find out more about it all."

"It seems like you and Erskine got along," Steve noted. The other men began to break off into their own conversations – none of them had known Erskine.

"We did," Alice recalled. "We… understood each other, I think. When we first met we were both prisoners in our own way, and when we met again in Brooklyn we'd found our own forms of freedom. He mentioned his family to me once, which was a rather large display of trust on his part, I think." Her head bowed. "He worried about me. Before I came back to Germany, he told me to remember that I had a _choice._"

Steve let out a long, slow breath. "I'm glad you had someone who… who understood at least some of what you were up to. Who was looking out for your safety."

Alice touched his arm. "And I'm glad you had someone who saw you for everything you could be, and trusted you with his legacy. Erskine couldn't have chosen anyone more worthy."

Steve's ears went red.

They kept hiking down the narrow dirt road with bare branches laden with snow to either side of them. The snow had fallen thick and fast, coating the ground and erasing their footprints behind them. Alice tried not to shiver too violently.

As she let her thoughts drift, something occurred to her. She sidled back to Steve's side.

"I have something… a little strange to apologize for."

His eyes softened. "I said you don't need to apologize to me any more. I understand why-"

"No, it's not about that. Not really. You know I've been writing and performing songs for the Nazis, but… I don't know what possessed me to do it, but there's this song called _D__er Flug des Adlers _– _the Eagle's Flight_ – and in it I used the word _Ulysses._" Steve's eyebrows flew up his forehead, and Alice continued on rapidly: "I'm sorry I did it, I wrote it while we were still writing letters to each other and I guess I wanted to resist in some way but the minute it was done I realized you would never have wanted-"

"It's okay," Steve said, and he had a smile on his face. "I like it."

Alice stared.

He shrugged. "I don't know, it makes it feel like… like the song isn't for _them._"

"It's not a good song," Alice said quickly. "Well, I mean, it is _good_, but the lyrics are…" she almost shuddered. "Awful."

"All except one of them," Steve said, still smiling. Alice returned the smile, tentatively, and they walked on.

* * *

Excerpt from '_Reviewing Propaganda' _by Mila Neumann (1950), p. 44:

_As we come to understand the power of propaganda in the Nazi's rise to power, one can not discount music. It is noted that the Nazi party introduced music into their radio programs, increasingly so during the war: Goebbels claimed that this was to "make the radio a good companion to the people", though in a private journal admitted that this was done to prevent civilians tuning in to enemy broadcasts. But aside from a blanket distraction, the Nazi propaganda machined used popular music with Aryan subtext to entice the public toward nazi ideals and goals._

... _for example the Siren, who produced undeniably catchy and beautiful music, with language sanitised just enough that the average person could listen to it on the radio and not see it for the blatant propaganda it was. Her songs used popular characters such as figures from German folklore, Roman and Greek heroes such as Hercules and Ulysses, and of course prominent Nazi leaders. Her songs made Aryan Germans feel invincible, superior: exactly the mindset that the Nazis wanted to engender._

* * *

"Christ," Dugan said an hour later. "They never tell you when you sign up for the army how _boring _it'll be." He kicked a snowdrift, sending the white powder flying. "I thought things'd get a bit more exciting around you, Rogers, but look where you've brought us!"

"Careful what you wish for," Steve replied wryly. He seemed more vivid than ever with the white and grey backdrop – his uniform was a pop of startling blue, and his shield attracted the eye from a mile away. It made Alice nervous.

Soon the snow began to clear up, leaving the clouds still ominous but the air clear and cold.

The terrain had evened out, much to the relief of Alice and her burning thighs. The road they followed was narrow and seemingly unused, winding through the thick forest on its way north.

According to Morita's map they were close to their extraction point. They might reach it by the evening, but with the snow Morita changed his estimate to tomorrow morning. Alice warred with the opposing feelings of relief that she'd get to spend more time with Steve, Bucky, and their men, and annoyance that she'd be out in this cold for even longer.

She was just contemplating this, her hands stuffed deep in the pockets of Dugan's coat and her chin tucked into the lapel to avoid the cold, when they rounded a bend in the road and she sensed the men come to an abrupt halt. She looked up, frowning, and her stomach plummeted so fast that she almost dropped to her knees.

They'd practically collided with another group of soldiers. Only this group had about twenty men and a truck, and were very obviously German.

The soldiers wore grey-green uniforms, helmets, black boots and had dark belts cinched around their waists. Even from a hundred yards away Alice could see the black Nazi crosses at their lapels and the silver _Reichsadler _on their breasts. Each man had an MP40 submachine gun strapped to his back, and a look of utter confusion and surprise on his face.

Alice went cold. The rational part of her mind told her that this was a light infantry _Jäger_ unit, likely on patrol in the backwoods. Her eyes flicked to the truck, where she could just make out the driver – another infantry soldier – and a man with a longer coat and a cap that identified him as a mid-level commander.

The non-rational part of Alice's mind whited out with panic.

All this passed in the space of a second: both forces stopped in their tracks, staring at the other as if they couldn't quite comprehend what they found themselves looking at. The snowy road fell silent.

In the next instant, the silence fell apart. At the same time as Steve whipped his shield off his back and shouted in a tone of pure panic: "_Get Al out of the way!_" the German soldiers let out a cry of alarm and reached for their weapons all at once. Their movements were hurried and unsure; this was occupied territory miles away from the front, they can't have been expecting a fight.

Alice had a moment of pure disassociation: bombing raids and engaging with a single enemy in the dark she understood. If she'd run across this troop by herself she might've been able to talk her way out of it. But this was _battle._

Gunfire erupted, shattering the air with deafening noise, and the 107th Tactical Team scattered; most of them dashed forward at a breakneck pace, already firing and some of them hollering at the top of their lungs, while others darted into the trees.

Alice started forward, her first instinct being, bizarrely, to pull Steve out of trouble. That was always her gut instinct in a fight. But he ducked behind his shield as the volley of gunfire erupted and at the same time someone grabbed Alice's arm and tugged, sending her stumbling into the trees. A hand planted itself on the back of her head, pushing her into the shockingly cold snow, and someone shouted _get down and hide._

Alice obeyed. She lay for a second, stunned, her mouth, nose and eyelashes full of snow and her ears ringing with gunfire. She choked on snow as she tried to breathe, and then jerked her head up, anxiously looking out for Steve. She shifted forward a little, still lying on her front, and saw that what had once been a silent stand off on the road had become an explosive mess.

Soldiers shouted and swung their weapons around, firing bullet sprays into the forest. A tree trunk near Alice tore apart under the bullets. She thought for a moment that they were firing at nothing, but then she saw Dugan dart out from behind a tree and blast a soldier with his shotgun, his mouth open in a snarl. The soldier fell to the ground and stained the snow red. Dugan dove back into the cover of the trees.

Her gaze shifted and she found Steve. He hadn't darted into the trees like the others but had barreled right into the midst of the soldiers. Alice opened her mouth, as if to call him back, but then she saw him roll into a ball, using his shield to deflect a spray of bullets, then spring up to punch a man across the jaw. The man dropped like a stack of bricks.

Steve whirled away, using the momentum to hurl his shield into the windshield of the truck (which had fired up its engines as if to screech away). The speed and power of it combined with the bright _blast _of shattering glass made Alice flinch. Steve leaped up onto the hood of the truck and plunged his fist through what remained of the glass, seizing the troop commander and tossing him out onto the road.

_Steve's got this_.

Alice inched forward as the fight continued, army crawling through the snow like Peggy had taught her. She was slightly hidden at the bottom of an incline. The battle had spilled off the road and into the trees, with people wearing all kinds of uniforms darting everywhere, but she noticed that the fighting was mostly on the other side of the road: Steve's men had drawn the fight away from her.

The Germans had rallied together, all their weapons out and firing now, forcing Steve behind the truck for cover. In the forest on the other side of the road Alice saw Dernier toss something toward the soldiers, which a few seconds later exploded in a violent _bang _that brought one soldier screaming to his knees.

Seconds later Falsworth and Morita rolled out from behind cover simultaneously, firing at the Germans. Most of the soldiers found cover behind trees or the truck, but another two fell. The Germans fired back, making Alice's heart leap, but both Falsworth and Morita rolled out of sight apparently unharmed. She caught a glimpse of Gabe darting through the trees, but then a flurry of movement in front of her made her jerk back into a kneeling position, arms up.

A German had fallen down the incline right in front of her. Alice's hand darted for her belt and her knife, but then she saw his glassy eyes and the sudden scarlet stain in the snow, and instead shifted forward so she was hidden from the road by a sturdy tree. She stared down at the dead man and realized that her heart was pounding so hard against her chest that her very ribs seemed to hurt.

The man had a light mustache and freckles. His eyes were blue.

Alice couldn't think for the deafening, unceasing rattle of gunfire, and each new _blast _or _crash _made her flinch. Sweat poured down her face and the snow under her palms melted away as if she were on fire.

With her back pressed firmly against the rigid bark of the tree, Alice turned her head to peek back at the road. The battle was fierce – Steve's men had been divided, and were picking off all the soldiers they could from behind slim cover. They hadn't had any time to form a battle plan, but they were doing remarkably well despite their severe outnumbering. As she watched, Dernier dove behind a tree just as the snow where he'd been crouching erupted into bursts of powder as bullets struck it.

Her gaze flicked back to Steve, who ducked behind his shield, advancing slowly toward a knot of German soldiers unloading their weapons at him. What Steve could not see were the three other soldiers creeping around the back of the truck toward him. They were about to come up on his undefended side.

Without thinking, Alice stretched toward the dead German and unclipped his weapon – a Luger P08, standard Wehrmacht handgun, the same kind Peggy had trained her in. The man jostled sickly as she took the gun from his belt. She surged unsteadily to her feet, darted out onto the road, cocked the gun, aimed, then fired four times.

The gunshots resounded in her eardrums. She'd forgotten how loud it could be.

She'd gone for double taps to be sure of her target, as per her training. Steve flinched and turned just as two of the men creeping up behind him crumpled to the ground. He slammed his shield into the third, then glanced over his shoulder and looked right at Alice. His eyes widened. But then the knot of soldiers he'd originally been heading for began firing on Morita, and he had to dive to protect him.

Alice swung her aim, watching for another target or for someone targeting her. The main knot of soldiers had scattered. As she looked around she saw a German soldier on her side of the road in the trees, firing out from behind cover. He and Dugan were exchanging fire, but neither of them had a good angle on the other. Alice had an excellent angle.

She ducked back into the foliage, her footsteps soft in the snow, and crept forward until she saw the soldier kneeling behind a tree, peering out. Alice raised her stolen weapon, sighted, and fired twice more. She was much closer this time so she saw the holes open up in his chest. He had just long enough to raise a hand to the bullethole over his heart before he slumped backwards, landing with a _puff _of snow. He went still.

When Alice looked up and around, she found herself staring down the barrel of Dugan's shotgun. Slowly, she raised her hands. Dugan stood in the middle of the road now, staring back at her with wide eyes, and Alice realized that the fight was over. No more gunshots tore the air. No one shouted. The only German left standing with a weapon was her.

A moment later, as if waking up from a dream, Dugan dropped his aim. Alice trudged up out of the snow and onto the now muddy, bloody road, her ears burning with the cold and her front soaking wet. She realized that she still held the dead man's gun, so she dismantled it and dropped it in the mud. Cold numbness spread through her from her fingertips.

Dead Germans lay on the road, sprawled and tangled amongst each other. Bullet casings and shattered glass from the truck littered the ground. The 107th Tactical Team still had all members – _seven men against twenty_, Alice reflected with something like awe. _Well. Seven men and one woman._

Steve appeared in front of her. He didn't touch her – she felt dimly glad for it – but he'd ducked his head to look into her eyes. _He never had to do that before._ Vivid blue and warm and his chest heaving, he eyed her searchingly. "_Alice._"

She looked up.

"Are you hurt?"

She shook her head. "Are you?"

"It's harder to hurt me now than it used to be," he reminded her gently. He still had his shield on his forearm. He smelt like gunpowder. His eyes moved away from her, across the warzone the road had become, and she knew he was looking at the soldiers she had killed. He'd seen her.

Alice came back to herself a little and looked up to find them all staring at her. Each man was busily engaged with something: looting ammunition, or checking bodies, but each of them had his eyes on her.

It made her skin crawl. Why was it different? They'd all just killed far more men than her, but they were looking at her like she'd slaughtered the whole troop by herself.

She swallowed and looked back to Steve. "We need to hide the bodies."

"No point," Gabe said from the truck, where he held up a field radio. "They already got word back to their commanders that they encountered resistance, they'll already be hunting us."

"We need to get out of dodge," Bucky called. He came over, prickling with urgent energy, and squeezed Alice's shoulder. "You did good, Al."

It didn't feel good. But she knew what he meant.

The exhaustion she'd felt when she woke that morning began to creep over her again, numbing her adrenaline and enhancing the aches blooming across her body, but then Steve called: "Let's go!" and all the men stopped rifling through the battlefield and set off at a jog into the trees.

Alice found herself jogging too, though she stumbled at first, trying to keep pace with them. Steve kept close by her side, each long lope of his legs matching two of hers. She felt his anxious eyes on the side of her face.

They ran for what felt like miles. Steve and Morita consulted the map as they ran, swiftly changing directions. The snow was melting in the midday sun but they didn't want to risk their footprints being followed, so they veered east until they hit a river and ran up the shallow banks for a while.

They all watched the sky. After about half an hour they heard the angry buzz of _Luftwaffe_ planes, and dashed from the riverbank back into the cover of the trees.

Chest heaving, her feet soaking and her hands shaking, Alice dug her spine against a tree trunk, squeezed her eyes shut and tried to catch her breath. She didn't dare peek out through the branches to spot the planes she could hear buzzing overhead.

She sensed Steve settle beside her, surprisingly quiet despite his large frame.

"So," he murmured. "Agent Carter taught you how to shoot as well, I see."

She opened her eyes to see him offering her a small, concerned smile.

Alice nodded. A plane rumbled so close overhead that she flinched. "Plus I remember Father Rickard teaching us when we were kids."

Steve smiled, as if they weren't hiding from enemy aircraft with nothing but trees for cover. The men around them were similarly pressed up against trees, their hands on their weapons and their faces grim.

Alice turned back to Steve with a serious gaze. "This war is changing us, Steve."

"It might be," he agreed. He reached for her hand and squeezed it. "But not in the ways that count."

The plane engines had faded, and after another moment Steve peeled away from the tree and Alice.

"Let's get going," he urged.

With a groan, Alice heaved herself onto her own two legs and tried to slow her breaths.

* * *

Excerpt from _HYDRA Intelligence Report ZX56F4#66 -_ Marked _'Direct to Red_ _Skull_', (December 1943) [Translated] SSR Archives:

_URGENT: FOREIGN SOLDIERS HAVE BEEN SIGHTED BEHIND THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY, EAST OF L'AQUILA. WEHRMACHT TROOP REPORTED SLAUGHTERED. NO WORD YET IF IT IS THE AMERICAN. WILL REPORT SOON.  
  
_

* * *

They kept running in a weaving, unpredictable route away from the battle zone. Steve seemed to have a plan, and though he didn't stop to explain it to the others Alice knew that everyone trusted him. She certainly did. She didn't think she had the energy to question anyone at the moment, anyway.

But when they came to a halt in the forest outside what looked like a small, definitely occupied town, Alice frowned. Steve murmured something into Dernier's ear, and with a nod the Frenchman crept out of the forest and toward the town.

"What are we doing?" Alice asked breathlessly. She rubbed at the stitch in her side.

Steve crouched beside a tree with one hand on the bark and his eyes on the town. "The Germans know we left on foot," he murmured. "They'll be looking for us within running distance. So we need a boost of speed."

Bucky appeared by Alice's side. He put his hand over hers on her side, where her stitch felt like it was stabbing her, and gently pushed. "Breath deeply, all the way to your diaphragm, and hold your breath," he muttered. His eyes weren't on her but flicked all around.

Alice did as he said, though she couldn't hold her breath for very long, and was surprised to find that her stitch ebbed and gradually faded.

By the time her sweat started to cool on her forehead and a sickening mixture of dread and remembrance swirled in her stomach, another rumbling engine had them all sinking down into the foliage and watching the road.

A flatbed farming truck rolled up on the narrow dirt path they'd hidden beside. The driver's side window rolled down and three low whistled notes reverberated into the trees.

Without a word Steve stood, ushering the others toward the truck. Alice limped out after them and saw Dernier in the driver's seat, grinning.

"_Ils ne remarqueront pas celui-ci manquant pendant un petit moment,_" [_They won't notice this one missing for a little while_] he whispered. "_Tout le monde à bord!_" [_All aboard!_]

Steve yanked up the tarpaulin on the back of the truck, revealing a few stacks of timber, and with a flap of his hand the 107th Tactical Team began piling aboard, crouching or lying beside the timber. Steve turned to look at Alice, but she shook her head.

"I'll go in the front. I'm the only one with enough Italian to get by, and I'm not in uniform."

Steve's eyes creased with concern, but he nodded. "Dernier knows where we're heading. Just – here." He leaned forward, and before Alice could question him, he'd swiped the thumb of his burgundy gauntlet over the corner of her jaw. She winced – she must have cut herself. "You had some blood," he said quietly, then set one knee on the flatbed, holding the tarp up over his head. Falsworth shifted his legs to give Steve more room. Steve's eyes flicked over her. "Okay?"

"Okay," she echoed, then jogged up to the cabin of the truck and hoisted herself into the passenger seat.

Dernier stuck his head out the driver's side window to check the back, waiting until Steve had tied down the tarpaulin. The truck looked like it had a lumpy, uneven load, but it didn't necessarily look like there were six men hiding under the tarp.

"_Allons-y!_" Dernier exclaimed with entirely too much glee, and stomped on the gas.

Alice spent the drive clutching the door for support as Dernier rattled them over the snowy, perilous backroads of the countryside. She winced at each pothole they hit, knowing that as much as it rattled her, it had to be exceedingly painful for the men shoved together in the flatbed behind her.

Alice kept part of her mind on their heading – she was pretty sure they were still heading north, though it was difficult to tell since the sun was indistinct in the grey sky, and Dernier didn't seem to need help reading the map that lay spread open on his lap.

The other part of her mind worked on excuses and explanations. _Hello, Mr Gestapo Officer, I wouldn't actually recommend checking the back since we've just cleared out our pigsty and- no, our herd have actually all died and we didn't find them for a week, so we're taking them – no, never mind the back! I saw a whole lot of foreign-looking soldiers running through here a few miles back. Seemed like they were on the run. Yes, that way! _

As fast as she churned out ideas, she knew that if the slightest thing went wrong they would find themselves plunged into a firefight again.

But after some time Dernier pulled over in the middle of a tiny trail through the dark forest (she wasn't sure the trail was actually designed for automobiles at all), and turned off the engine. Alice let out a breath of relief that they hadn't come across any roadblocks. They were lucky they weren't near the front, and in a relatively uninhabited area.

Alice climbed out of the cabin to hear Dugan's voice swearing a blue streak from somewhere under the tarpaulin.

"What's wrong with you, Dernier, you like finding each and every hole in the road and plowing through it?" he growled. "Don't they teach you how to drive in France?"

Alice grabbed the edge of the tarpaulin to help Steve push it back, and stood back as they all piled off, groaning and stretching. Each of them scowled at Dernier, who just smiled in return.

"Where are we?" Steve asked, looking a little rumpled.

Dernier explained that he had followed instructions, then pulled out the map and pointed to the middle of a green, blank-looking area.

Alice craned her neck and nodded. "We passed that crossroads ten minutes ago, and that lake," she confirmed.

Steve cast her a thankful glance and clapped Dernier on the shoulder. "Good job. Let's find somewhere to camp for the night. We're within range of the extraction point but we ought to wait until tomorrow."

"Won't they still be looking for us?" Alice asked.

"Yes, but not here."

"And anyway," said Bucky, as Dugan and Falsworth pushed the truck further into the trees and began draping it with broken off branches. "Those soldiers recognized us. And their leaders are used to us coming in, striking, and getting out. They won't expect us to stay."

"They know that if they can't catch us within the hour then they won't catch us," Gabe chimed in.

Morita had climbed up a nearby tree without Alice noticing, and she glanced up in surprise when he called down to them: "There's a structure a mile west. Reckon it might be worth a shot."

He dropped out of the tree, dusting off his hands, and Steve gestured. "Lead the way."

Morita had spotted a barn with no farmhouse or fields around it. As they approached, crouched in cold silence, it became apparent that this barn had not seen habitation in some time: weeds crept up against the stone walls, one of the upper windows lay open and gaping, the glass long gone, and the dirt road leading up to the barn was so overgrown that it was barely visible.

Steve and Bucky went to check the barn and clear it out while the others waited inside the treeline. When Bucky returned through the front door and waved at them, they moved as a pack towards the building.

"Empty," Bucky explained once they approached. "For a while. But it's still standing, and seems waterproof enough."

Alice was first through the door, and once her eyes adjusted to the darkness she looked around to see a wide, empty structure with thick wooden support beams, some ancient rusted farming equipment in the corner, and not much else. The place smelled like mold and rat droppings.

"Home sweet home," muttered Dugan as he passed her.

"Alright," came Steve's voice, and they all looked up to see him standing in an upper loft space. He moved away from the gaping window, and the wooden beams under him creaked ominously. "Anyone injured?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Good," Steve said with genuine relief in his voice, then leaped from the loft. Alice nearly let out a yelp and just barely managed to swallow the sound, because Steve landed neatly, knees bent, and strolled toward them as if he'd hopped down a ledge instead of a drop of more than ten feet.

Then he started giving orders, and they all burst into movement once more. Gabe and Falsworth went out on patrol right away while Morita, Dugan, and Dernier began laying their tent canvasses on the slightly damp barn floor and arranging another coal pit. Then it turned out that Morita actually had a badly skinned arm, so they tended to that as well. Steve and Bucky were talking about whether or not to attempt waterproofing the barn.

Alice hadn't received any orders, so she waited just long enough to reassure herself that everyone was safe and alive, then slipped out the rotting back door of the barn and into the dim sunlight. She found a rusted metal bucket, turned it upside down and sat, eyeing the melting snow.

She couldn't see much from here apart from the rocky incline up to yet another mountain, and the grey sky. But she hadn't come out here to sightsee.

Alice tried, as she had after the night she'd killed Albrecht, to _feel _something. She'd had to shut down her instant reactions of horror and fear once again to be useful, and it was hard to dredge back something resembling human feeling. She sat, breathing evenly, stretching out the aches in her legs and prodding at the various bruises and cuts she'd accumulated in their mad dash.

After about ten minutes she heard two pairs of footsteps coming around the side of the barn.

She listened to the footsteps, heard them falter. She dug her toe into the muddy ground.

"Those weren't the first men I've killed," she murmured. She looked up.

Steve and Bucky stood a few feet away, side by side, identical expressions of concern on their faces. They were rumpled and covered in mud like her.

"Nor us," Bucky said softly. "But I'm sorry you had to do that, Alice. It's not… it's never easy."

Steve let out a heavy breath.

Alice leaned back on her bucket so her shoulders rested against the side of the barn. "I'm sorry that this war's made killers of us all."

Bucky paced closer to lean beside her. "Maybe one day there'll be day when none of us have to kill again."

"Hear, hear." Steve hadn't moved.

"But until then," Alice sighed, "We have to be strong enough for each other to keep the war from killing us, too."

Bucky's hand landed on her shoulder, but he didn't say anything. Steve watched them from a few feet away, heaviness in his gaze. His gauntlets hung loose by his side and his shield gleamed on his back.

Alice eyed the large bulk of him with his familiar face and felt, for the first time in a long time, that she might make it through this war.

After a few moments of silence, Bucky squeezed Alice's shoulder.

"So I'm a marksman, and Steve's a walking magnet for trouble, but how much danger do you get put in that you have to be killing people?" His tone was light, but she heard the undercurrent of worry.

Alice shrugged. "There've been… assassinations. I can't tell you the details." But then she frowned. "Well I suppose it doesn't really matter, it's easy enough to figure out if you know who I am." She laced her fingers together. "There was Captain Sauer, an ally of HYDRA. He was in hiding but we drew him out to my concert, and one of our allies in the Polish resistance shot him."

She sensed Bucky and Steve exchange a glance, but she wasn't looking at them now.

"We provided intelligence to assist with other assassinations – including Reinhard Heydrich's. And at a party in Berlin at Heinrich Himmler's house, I broke into Himmler's office to find some documents" – she felt mounting anxiety and shock in the air around her – "and… a man walked in."

She left it there, her lips clamped shut, thinking of the way Albrecht's face had shifted from surprise, to confusion, to suspicion.

But then she looked up and saw Steve's round eyes. "He didn't hurt me," she reassured. "You needn't look so worried. I didn't give him much time to realize what I was up to, let alone for him to hurt me. I just… killed him."

The look in Steve's eyes shifted to devastation, and she looked away hurriedly.

"Alice," he murmured. "I'm so sorry."

She frowned and looked back. _Ah _– she'd misunderstood the devastation. She'd thought it was horror at how much Alice had changed and the awful things she'd had to do. But he felt it _for _her. In that moment she realized that he would not suddenly change his mind and decide she was a monster. He _understood._

She smiled weakly. "I don't regret it. I wish I hadn't had to do it, but if you put me back in that room right now I'd do it again. I didn't only save my life that night, but also everyone who had helped to put me in that office. I also…" she swallowed. Trust, suspicion, how much to give away? "That mission was an important one. Very significant people would probably have died without the information I found."

Steve raised an eyebrow, but did not ask her to elaborate.

Alice tapped her fingers on her knee. "I met Hitler," she said abruptly.

"We know," replied Bucky evenly.

_Right. _The article.

"I wanted to kill him too."

Steve shifted, but when she looked up at him his expression was one of careful attention.

"I knew I could do it, but Otto talked me out of it." Her teeth gritted. "I don't often lose sleep, but I've lost a few nights thinking about that." Her voice lowered. "Thinking about whether things would be different today, if I'd done it."

Steve had horror in his voice when he said: "They'd have killed you."

She looked up at the tone in his voice, feeling instantly guilty. "Steve…" She put herself in his shoes for a moment. If she'd heard Steve describing the same situation, she'd have been terrified.

If Bucky had noticed Steve's sudden horrorstruck expression, he didn't comment on it. He'd been frowning, clearly thinking hard. "It wouldn't have changed anything," he eventually said decisively. "Hitler'd be dead, and so would you, and we'd all still be killing each other."

Alice smiled, but there was nothing happy in the expression.

"Alice…" Steve's voice tripped. "Please-"

She stood up, unable to bear the fear in his eyes, and walked over to take his hand. She made sure he was looking into her eyes. "It's not often that I consider throwing my life away, Steve, I promise. But for something _that _worth it-"

"Nothing's worth it," he insisted.

"Steve," she said a little crossly. "You are out here risking your life every day to protect people because you think it's worth it. You can't tell me there's a difference." He looked argumentative now, so she softened her tone. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I just… if you had the chance, Steve, if you thought you could stop all this death and suffering…" she pressed her lips shut, because she suddenly didn't want to finish the question.

"He'd do it," Bucky said lowly. They both looked over. He'd taken Alice's seat on the bucket, and he was glowering at Steve. "The idiot."

Steve looked mutinous.

"This is just making us mad at each other," Alice sighed. "We're all very brave and noble, let's agree to that and move on."

"Not me," Bucky shot back. "No way would I die just to kill that prick Hitler."

Alice and Steve both smiled in surprise, still holding hands. Alice suspected that Bucky was trying to make her feel better.

"Can you imagine it?" Bucky said with a flippant wave of his hand. "Sergeant Bucky Barnes, handsomest man in Brooklyn, gives his life to get rid of a sweaty, angry man who never figured out that his mustache looked godawful."

Alice doubled over laughing, clutching Steve's hand like a lifeline, and Steve shook his head ruefully at Bucky as he chuckled.

"Nope," Bucky enunciated. "If I'm dying it's going to be for something worthwhile."

* * *

Excerpt from article '_20 Years On: Remembering the life of a Howling Commando_' by Michael Milton (1965):

_... speaking with Barnes' sister Rebecca, his charismatic character becomes clear. "Bucky was the heart of our family," says a now-married Rebecca, who has a photograph of her brother on her mantlepiece. "He was the heart of any group he found himself a part of - the Howling Commandos included, from what I've heard. He had a way of making you feel listened to, important. When he looked at you, were the whole world. And he noticed more than you thought, too. Hid it with idle talk, but he was always watching. I suppose that's what made him such a good marksman."_

_"I think the thing I'll miss most about him is just... the way he made us all feel. I know I'll never get that feeling again, not with anyone else. I only ever had one brother. But we feel selfish even missing him, sometimes. Because we're so proud of him, what he did over there. We know he wouldn't have missed coming home for anything less worthy."_

_When I ask about Sergeant Barnes's famous friend, Rebecca gives me a wry smile. "It still startles me to see how the world sees them. To so many people, Bucky was Captain America's right hand man. But when he and Steve went out in the world, they were nothing more than equals."_

* * *

They entered the barn laughing, and as if they were infectious the rest of the evening was spent in good spirits. They and the rest of the 107th Tactical Team traded watch duty and shared the last of their rations, sharing jokes and stories in the musty dimness of the barn.

Alice felt sleepy and safe, despite the harrowing events of the day, and the way Dugan, Morita and the others easily accepted her into the fold made her smile when they weren't looking. She'd seen today that they were capable, determined men with a thorough understanding of war, and their respect meant a great deal to her. They didn't treat her differently after seeing her gun down soldiers with ice in her eyes.

As if the battle had newly opened her eyes, Alice found herself looking at Steve more often. He'd explained the way Project Rebirth had worked, more or less, but she had been more caught up in the change in his appearance. Today, though, she'd seen him do things that no other human could be capable of.

In a lull in the conversation, Steve looked over and caught her peering at him. "What?" he asked, half-smiling.

"So…" she began, not sure how to put it. "You're… strong."

The soldiers snorted.

"Um, yes," Steve replied.

Alice narrowed her eyes. "_How _strong?"

He opened his mouth. "I… we've never really measured it?"

"It's not just strength, though, is it?" said Bucky, who leaned back on his elbows.

Steve sighed. "The way it was explained to me, the serum didn't give me anything. It just enhanced what I already had."

"So enhanced strength," Alice surmised, frowning.

"He's fast, too," chimed in Dugan. "He runs rings around us."

"And he can go on longer than any of us. I bet you haven't felt tired this whole mission," Morita added, raising his eyebrows at Steve.

"I feel tired," protested Steve. They rolled their eyes at him.

"He heals quicker," Bucky noted.

"His senses also exceed ours," said Falsworth consideringly. "The Captain often sees and hears things long before we can."

Gabe nodded. "Agent Carter said the serum was 'sposed to have enhanced his intelligence and memory as well."

"Right, he's real good with plans and tactics," agreed Dugan.

"He was good at that before," Alice said numbly.

Steve's cheeks were tinged pink and he couldn't meet anyone's eye. "Well, anyway. The scientists were very excited about it all."

"You just heard 'get big, fight war', didn't you?" Bucky sighed.

Alice shook her head slowly, trying to process it all. Steve hadn't struck her as particularly different at heart, so she'd neglected to notice his new abilities. "Well. Can you…" she cast around and her eyes landed on a large metal agricultural pump rusting in the corner. It was the size of a refrigerator. "Can you lift that?"

Steve sighed. "Probably."

"Prove it."

The others were laughing now, and seeing that none of them would stop until he obeyed, Steve got to his feet with another sigh and walked over the pump. With very little fanfare he gripped it by its least-rusty parts and hoisted it up over his head without an ounce of effort.

Alice's laughter cut off abruptly as her eyes widened.

"Happy?" Steve said with the ghost of a smile, then set down the pump again. He dusted off his hands and returned to the fire.

"You oughta be a strongman at a fair," laughed Dugan.

"Believe it or not, Dum-Dum, I've got better things to do with my time."

"Could you lift _me_?" Alice asked. She knew it was a silly question the moment it left her mouth because of _course _he could, but the Steve Rogers she'd once known would never have had a chance at even getting her off the ground. She had to abruptly reconceive her whole perception of him once again.

Steve cocked an eyebrow. "Want me to prove it?"

Alice grinned. There was that daring charm he'd hidden throughout their childhood. He was just more confident expressing it now. "What if I do?"

A few long moments of silence passed as they watched each other and the fire crackled. But then Bucky snorted, breaking the silence, and informed Dugan that his boots were about to catch on fire. Dugan yanked his feet away from the coals, cursing profusely. Conversation rumbled back to life and after a few long, electric moments, Alice was able to tear her eyes away from Steve.

When the coals were well and truly dimming, and most of the men had lain out on top of their tent canvasses with their heads pillowed on their packs, Alice and Steve climbed up the rotting wooden ladder to the damp loft. Once up there they sat side by side with their feet dangling off the edge, looking down on the dozing men. Bucky had relieved Dernier on watch.

Neither of them said it, but they both knew: this was their last night together.

Steve yawned and slumped toward Alice, not leaning on her but resting his arm against hers. He'd taken his cowl and gauntlets off, and he'd left his shield down on the barn floor. She could see it gleaming next to his tent canvas.

"Steve," Alice murmured. She was pretty sure her voice wouldn't carry down to the sleeping men. "I… I truthfully don't know what the end of the war will mean for us. And that's if we even make it there."

She felt his attention sharpen and settle on her.

"I want you to consider…" she struggled to get the words out. She'd been thinking this for days. "We said a lot of things to each other in Brooklyn, and that was… it was _wonderful_, but you don't have to… to wait for me. I'm not an easy person to" – she choked on the word _love _– "know, and I've lied to you, hid things from you, and I'm going right back into the heart of Germany to lie and conceal even more."

She couldn't look at him directly but she saw him patiently listening to her, eyes inscrutable.

"I mean… we've only _just_ met again, and I'm about to leave." Her voice shook. "I'm always leaving you. Maybe Peggy isn't such a–"

"Alice," he finally cut her off. "When we were in Brooklyn everything was different. Since then I've joined the army, become a hundred pounds bigger, performed in my own USO show, blown up a HYDRA base, and now I'm running around the front lines with a red, white and blue shield." He paused, mouth quirked, to let the absurdity sink in. "The world is crazy right now. I don't know what's going to happen either. But this feels like a chance."

He paused to take a deep breath and Alice watched him, fascinated.

"Wherever we end up, whatever happens – if you'll have me – then… why make this even more complicated?" His mouth turned up.

Alice huffed a laugh. "Of course I'll have you. My whole life, it was always going to be you. Everything else just keeps…" she flapped a hand. "Getting in the way."

That made him soften, and the way he looked at her made her shiver. She ached from head to toe, covered in mud and dried sweat and the grime of three days hard travel, but he looked at her like… like she was the best thing he'd ever seen.

"Well then," she said, almost lamely, just for the sake of saying something. She had known since the first night, in the back of her mind, that they needed to have this conversation, and it had gone far better than she could have hoped for. But she should have known: things were never really that complicated between she and Steve, when it was just the two of them.

Steve leaned in a little closer, edged his arm behind her, and suddenly they were in each other's arms. Alice looped her left arm around his significantly-broader middle and thunked her head down a little harder than she meant to on his shoulder as his right arm wrapped around her. They pressed together hip to hip and knee-to-knee, and Alice smiled as they drew in one deep, long breath together.

"We can't talk details," Alice said, closing her eyes to better hear his heartbeat. "Neither of us have any clue what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone further in the future."

"That's okay." Steve tucked his face against the top of her head, and he let out another breath. "We've got the important part figured out."

* * *

After a fitful, though slightly warmer night's sleep, things moved very quickly. They packed up and cleared out of the barn, moving quickly north over hills that offered thinner and thinner cover.

As usual Alice was in the middle of the pack, though this morning she paid much closer attention to their bearings. They'd discussed extraction plans early on. The 107th Tactical Team were to report to an empty field near a small Italian town, and make contact with an ally who had flown in a night ago and hidden the plane in the forest.

According to their orders, following the extraction of the tactical team, 'the asset' would have a short walk back into the small town where she could catch a train to Rome.

Alice had gone to the effort of making herself presentable that morning so she wouldn't seem out of place when she arrived back in public: she'd washed her face in a bucket of melted snow, and tidied her clothes as best as she could. Her hair was stuffed tightly under the cap without a single flyaway.

The men were just as wary and watchful as ever, but there was also a looseness about the way they moved: their mission was almost over. They were full of talk about extraction procedures and flight times.

Alice stared desperately at them all, especially Steve and Bucky, trying to imprint them on her mind. Instead of the prospect of the end of a mission, Alice looked into her future and only saw more missions. She thought about going back to Rome, to Berlin, with a tired feeling. These past few days in the mountains had been cold and hard, and her body positively _throbbed _with pain, but the time had been inordinately precious to her.

The last time she said goodbye to Bucky and Steve she'd thought she'd never see them again. And now she was faced with the same prospect.

Far too soon, the trees thinned and Alice found herself following the commandos onto the edge of a wide, dry field. Her heartrate spiked, and then almost stopped when she heard a low whistle from the other side. She and the others looked up to see a man on the other treeline waving to them.

"There's our ride," murmured Dugan, and they circled around to the man. He was a young RAF pilot, dashingly handsome with windswept chestnut hair and a brilliant smile, and Alice barely looked at him. She heard him, though – he exchanged jokes of camaraderie with Steve and the tactical team, gave 'Al' directions to the town (she nodded numbly), then asked for help getting his plane ready.

Alice helped pull the camouflaged netting off the small troop carrier, and added her meagre strength to the others as they rolled the plane out from under the trees. The pilot hopped into the cockpit, the rear loading ramp opened, and Alice looked up to find the 107th Tactical Team all watching her.

A cold breeze rustled the dry grass on the field.

Alice glanced over her shoulder to make sure the pilot couldn't overhear them, then cleared her throat. "Remember – Agent Argus, at Dover Castle next Saturday at 1500." The men nodded. "This is our only shot at finding out who the agent is, so one or all of you had better be there. Believe it or not, I don't get all that many leads about HYDRA spies."

"We'll be there," said Steve seriously. She met his eyes and her heart jumped at the determination and endearment there. Until this moment she hadn't realized that she'd been avoiding meeting his eyes all morning.

"Well." Alice swept her eyes over the rest of them. Bucky was quiet, standing back a little, and her heart throbbed. He never used to be like this. The others seemed to have quietened down too, their joviality at the end of the mission ebbing as they realized this was farewell. Alice's heart ached a moment longer before she let out a slow sigh and quirked her mouth.

She jerked her head at the plane just as the engines kicked into gear with a guttural whir. "Better get on board, or you'll miss your flight!" she called over the noise.

The uncertain tension broke.

"Good luck out there, young fella," Dugan said with a wink, then jogged up the short ramp onto the plane after dropping a heavy-handed pat on her shoulder.

The others filed up after Dugan, shouting words of encouragement and farewell over the droning plane engines before taking their seats on the long metal benches inside.

Bucky was second last. Alice had looked over her shoulder to watch Dernier and Gabe board the plane, so when she turned around to see him standing before her she almost jumped.

Bucky stood stiff, his face carefully blank. He opened his mouth, meeting her eyes, then looked away again.

Sensing that Bucky wasn't ready for words, Alice just leaned in and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. She felt the stiffness bleed out of him, and after a moment he hugged her back, gripping tightly.

"Don't you dare do anything stupid," he murmured just loud enough to be heard over the now roaring plane engines.

"I have never done anything stupid in my life."

"Heaven help me," he laughed. He squeezed her once more, then let go and took a stiff step back. His eyes were on her forehead when he snapped a quick salute, then he marched past her onto the plane. He didn't look back.

It stung a little, but Alice understood that this was what Bucky needed right now. For her to be a fellow soldier, and not the girl he used to go to school with.

She turned, and it was just her and Steve alone now. He'd taken his cowl off, but other than that it was all _Captain America_: scuffed blue uniform, broad shoulders, gun holsters, and a strange metal shield on his arm. Alice didn't feel like she really knew Captain America, not yet, but then she looked into his face and saw everything she needed to know.

Steve reached out to take her hand and opened his mouth to speak, but then Alice pressed her other hand over his and said:

"Don't ask me to come with you."

Steve's eyes closed, as if he were in pain.

"Don't ask me to come with you," she repeated, "And I won't ask you to go home." His eyes opened. His expression was wrenched. "We… we might not like it, but we are both where we need to be."

Steve nodded slowly. The plane engines growled, waiting for takeoff, and they could feel the eyes of every man inside the plane watching them.

Alice's heart thudded. _You have to let him go. _

She made to pull her hand out of Steve's and step away, but as she made the move his fingers tightened on hers and his eyes widened.

"Wait!" he exclaimed. "I can't believe I haven't said it already, but…" he took a heavy breath. "I love you, Alice."

Alice beamed at the warmth in his eyes. "One of these days we'll get to say that when we're not saying goodbye."

With a last, searing look, she withdrew, backpacing away so she didn't have to take her eyes off the plane, and the men in it, and Steve as he strode up the ramp.

But then he paused. Slowly, making the men waiting for him frown, Steve turned again.

Alice grinned.

With speed that he'd never have been capable before Steve ran back down the ramp, across the field, and swept Alice into his arms. Alice just had time to throw her arms around his neck before he leaned into her and they were kissing again, kissing like they were going to combust.

This didn't feel like that last helpless, tragic kiss back in his apartment in Brooklyn before she left last time. This kiss felt like _life._ Steve's left arm wrapped around her lower back and his right rose to cradle the back of her head and the sensation of it all surged into Alice's veins and set her head spinning. This was a kiss with a future.

Over the rumble of the engines Alice heard a piercing wolfwhistle, and she and Steve broke apart laughing. Alice peeked over his shoulder to see Bucky and a few of the other men hanging out the back of the plane, grinning.

"I'll see you later," murmured Steve. His hands had settled on her waist, his thumbs brushing over where her chest bandages were bound.

Alice met his eyes. "You'd better." With a deep inhale, she stepped away. She checked that none of her hair had escaped her cap and adjusted her posture, becoming Al once more. Steve blinked at the difference in her attitude. "Until next time," she said, eyes on him, before she turned and walked back into the treeline.

On the field, Steve watched her go with his fingernails pressed into his palms. All he wanted was to go with her.

But with one last fleeting glance back she disappeared into the forest, and he was left standing alone on the grass with a plane full of tired soldiers waiting for him. Drawing himself up, he turned and walked back to the plane.

* * *

Alice's journey back to Rome was largely uneventful. She got a few dirty looks on the train since there was no disguising the smell and general scruffiness of four days of unwashed travel, but in Rome she barely got a second glance. She thought numbly over the past few days, which already felt like a fever dream, as she stole a valet's uniform and broke into her own hotel room.

The room was empty, so she took a quick bath and changed back into her own clothes again. Soft, loose-fitted fabric felt like heaven after being stuck in coarse clothes and her chest bindings for days. She threw all of her traveling clothes, save the boots, in the fire.

Then she sat on the chintz chaise lounge by the hotel windows, not sure what to do. The sun was warm today, for winter, and she closed her eyes at the sensation of sunlight on her clean face. Her muscles ached. She was clean and warm for the first time in days. Behind her closed eyes, she saw Steve's grinning face as he kissed her in the airfield.

She hadn't realized that she'd fallen asleep until she jerked awake to the sound of the door opening. She tensed, preparing to hide, but then she heard Heidi and Otto's murmuring voices.

When they walked into the main room and saw Alice sitting on the chaise in a loose linen dress with her damp hair drying around her shoulders, they stopped dead in their tracks.

"Hello," she said simply. Otto's face loosened with relief, and Heidi smiled. "How was the Parthenon?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're all safe and healthy ❤️


	42. Chapter Thirty Three

Excerpt from translated article '_Das Geheimnis der Sirene [The Mystery of the Siren]_' by Hans Schruben (1965):

_What researchers who look into the Siren must accept at some point, is that there are stories we do not know. Perhaps someone knows the truth and is hiding it, or perhaps all the facts are not in the same place yet. But until then, we must accept life without all the answers._

* * *

Peggy stood at parade rest on the airfield beside Colonel Phillips, both of them watching in silence as a dull green troop transport aircraft touched down on the runway, bouncing slightly. It was a dim grey day in England, and the clouds threatened rain. A breeze brushed a strand of hair over Peggy's face and she shook it away impatiently.

The plane slowed down and wheeled around, making its way back to the small hangar Peggy and Phillips stood by. They watched, faces impervious, as the plane trundled to a halt. The rear doors opened up and a colorful crew poured out: Captain Rogers and the 107th Tactical Team. They looked grubby and tired, streaked in mud.

"Rogers," Phillips called as soon as they were in earshot. Peggy could practically hear his teeth grinding. "Care to explain why the hell you and your men pulled out of Italy without any orders? We've got an attack plan, you can't just travel back to safer shores every weekend-"

But Captain Rogers did not appear to be listening. He strode straight up to them – to Peggy – and spoke. "Agent Homer."

Peggy eyed him calmly. She'd never seen Steve _angry _before, not like this – he didn't loom or appear violent, but there was an intense determination blazing in his eyes. In his full Captain America uniform, the whole effect was fairly intimidating. "I beg your pardon?"

"Don't do that." He said brusquely. "You… do you know who she is?"

_She. _Before she could stop it, a flicker of panic made itself known on Peggy's face. "She… revealed her identity to you?" This was unanticipated. Peggy had simply assumed that Alice would go under her 'Al' disguise. She'd been a little worried about Alice keeping it up for four days, but she knew her to ba an excellent actress. What had happened?

"Yes," Steve said simply. The other men had trailed after him, watching the exchange with wary faces. "Do you know who she is?"

Peggy frowned. There was a weight to Steve's words that she didn't quite understand.

"What are you on about?" Phillips demanded, his anger at their sudden return turning to frustration. "So you figured out our agent's Austrian, why-"

"No," Steve said insistently. "I mean do you know who she is to _me_." Behind him, Sergeant Barnes cleared his throat. "To me and Bucky."

Peggy's eyes darted. Her mind whirred into gear, trying to understand what had shaken Captain Rogers so – _oh. Brooklyn. Damn it all to hell. _"You know her," she said cautiously, peering at him.

Steve took a step back, intensity ebbing, and met Sergeant Barnes' eyes. "They really didn't know."

"Seems like someone screwed up somewhere along the line," Barnes muttered.

Steve shook his head. "It's like we guessed, they must've been keeping so many secrets about us all that no one got all the facts in the same place."

"Enough of that," Phillips said in irritation, clicking his fingers. "Care to explain what's going on? You _know _Agent Homer?"

The two friends turned back to face them. Steve still seemed restless and upset, so Sergeant Barnes answered.

"We've known her most of our lives," he said simply. "Alice Moser…" he searched for words, and Peggy's stomach dropped at the use of Alice's full name. "Alice Moser is our best friend."

Steve and Barnes' men exchanged glances at that, but seemed to prefer to remain in silence.

"That's right," Steve added. He turned to face Peggy and Phillips, drawing himself tall. "And you're using her as a spy."

He held their gaze, righteous. Peggy did not break eye contact. Her mind was whirling with confusion as she tried to understand how this could have happened, but she was first and foremost a leader, and she would not show shame or weakness.

After a few moments, Steve's expression closed a little. "That's not why we're back, though," he said almost grudgingly. "Alice found something."

* * *

Later that day, Peggy found herself looking out the window of Colonel Phillips' office in Whitehall, standing silent with her hands resting on the windowsill as Phillips raged (well, he was forced to whisper for fear that someone might hear him, but his anger was irrepressible).

"And that dressed up wrecking ball has the gall to be angry at _me_," Phillips hissed as he rifled through his filing cabinet – for what, Peggy wasn't sure. "As if I'm the one who turned his friend into a devious little-"

Peggy stopped listening. _How could I have let this happen?_

She'd made a fatal error when she'd avoided looking into Alice's private life in Brooklyn. She hadn't considered it relevant. She'd had the SSR check on Alice's connections of course, but they only search for potential Nazi links. Why should a 95 pound asthmatic who'd never left Brooklyn raise any special interest?

Peggy bit the inside of her cheek as she stared unseeing at the street below. Since that morning she and Phillips had interviewed Steve and Barnes extensively about their connection with Alice. She could see it all now: how the crucial truth had fallen through the cracks.

When Steve was selected for Project Rebirth, Alice was long gone in Europe and there were no documented connections between the two of them anymore – unless the SSR had cared to delve into every student who'd ever attended Brooklyn High School. They hadn't.

Behind her, Phillips dropped a folder and papers went flying everywhere. He started cursing, and didn't bother to whisper this time.

Peggy thought back to those weeks in Brooklyn. She'd noticed that Alice _had _a private life of some kind during their training, but that had not been any of Peggy's business. Alice didn't let it impact her work, and Peggy trusted her to keep secrecy and put the mission above all else. And from what Steve and Barnes had told her, it seemed Alice had done just that.

Peggy thought about the pain Alice had been in these past months. Remembered her saying _I know this work is the most important thing I've done. But I've lost people I care about. _The wrenched, longing look Peggy remembered seeing in Alice's eyes matched the expression on Steve's face this morning.

She ran a hand over her chin. Alice had let Steve, Bucky, and her brother think she was a Nazi, and they had cut her off.

And Peggy had known all three of them, had been in the middle of all of it, and she'd been clueless.

_I will never let this happen again._

As this thought firmed her posture and clenched her fists, as Phillips growled and snapped, Peggy recalled the way Steve and Barnes had spoken about Alice in their debrief. They'd told Peggy and Phillips about their childhood, and the bond that had been formed over years of letter writing and shared history. Their voices had been fond, familiar, concerned. Steve's expression had been different from Barnes' though. Alice, to Bucky, was a dear childhood friend. To Steve… it was clear she was something more.

Alice was always so difficult to read, even to a master such as Peggy. But Steve was practically an open book.

A stirring of disappointment made itself known in Peggy's gut, and she frowned as she looked down at the busy street outside. _Perhaps, if he'd never found out about Alice… _but no. This was for the best. Peggy had enjoyed a brief moment of hope, which wasn't to be. Not with this… unspoken something.

She turned away from the window. Perhaps, with the hope removed, she and Steve might find a way to be good friends. They hadn't quite reached that point yet. Steve clearly liked Alice a great deal, and that showed he had excellent taste.

_It doesn't matter anyway, _Peggy thought frustratedly as she crouched down to help put Phillips' papers right. _We've all got jobs to do. _She knew she had some of the best people working for her in the SSR, and when they succeeded and the war was over, then… _well, then I'll have time for foolish thoughts like these. _

Phillips returned to furious whispering, and Peggy picked up the paper he'd been digging around for: a personnel list.

_For now, _she thought, _we have a spy to catch._

* * *

The 107th Tactical Team had returned to the _Whip & Fiddle, _but they weren't here to drink and carouse this time. They were certainly putting on a good show of it, but they'd taken over a table in an alcove in the smoky corner of the bar, distant from the other midafternoon barflies.

When Steve and Bucky had put their heads together to find a safe planning location, this was the best they'd come up with. They couldn't exactly have one of their big tactical discussions at the war table in the underground Whitehall Offices, where all the other SSR employees - and a potential HYDRA spy - could hear.

At the center of their table lay plans of Dover Castle, along with intelligence notes Peggy had personally collected herself, and photographs of each SSR employee. Bucky had brought a pinup catalogue along, which they used to cover their plans if anyone happened to walk by.

They had three days until the meet at Dover Castle, and since they'd arrived in London they'd been working hand in hand with Peggy and Phillips to arrange an intercept.

When he wasn't thinking about disguises and locations for lookouts, Steve's mind retreated back to those four impossible days in the Italian mountains. His mind had reeled to have Alice in front of him once more, and now it reeled at the loss of her. He sketched her – familiar eyes and unfamiliar bearing – when he couldn't sleep.

He thought, by now, he should be used to being apart from her. They'd been separated since the age of seventeen, and by now they'd had more time apart than they'd ever had together. And yet he found himself lost once again in the strangeness of not having her by her side, not having her cool green eyes to turn to when he wanted to share a joke, or a smile.

He thought, once again, how unfair it was that the world kept pulling them apart when the time they had together felt _right._ He felt as if he were defying some sign from the universe for resisting against the endless tide that pushed them apart.

"You're all up in your own head again," came Bucky's mutter.

Steve blinked to find himself staring down at his own hand, which lay spread over a floor map of Dover Castle and its grounds. He wondered how long he'd been staring at it. "Sorry."

"S'alright, I get it," Bucky sighed. "There's a lot to think about."

"Yeah," Steve said roughly. "I… like I was saying, we need to intercept the spy without HYDRA realizing, ideally, so we can learn as much as possible. Also we need to prevent the spy from using the cyanide capsule they'll no doubt have."

"Right," Bucky said with a knowing, wry look at Steve. "That's why I'm saying that if it is a handler meet, we should let the meet go ahead as planned and then nab the spy after the handler leaves."

"We run the risk of the spy handing over vital intelligence, though-" began Dugan, only to interrupt himself as he saw someone approaching the table, and slid the pinup catalogue over their plans.

But it was just Gabe. "Hey fellas," he grinned as he strode up to them, dusting snow off his collar. He dropped a newspaper on top of the pinups and flopped down beside Dernier. "Look what I found."

They all craned forward to see the copy of _The Times, _which Gabe had folded open to a specific article. It was headlined "_Nazi Diva_", and two large photographs of the Siren graced the page.

Steve's stomach flipped over.

Dugan dragged the paper toward himself and goggled at the photos. The first was of Alice at the premiere for her movie, arm in arm with the costar, and the second Steve remembered from the _New York Times _article: her in a flowing white dress with draping sleeves like wings, her expression piercing and unknowable.

"_This _is her?" Dugan whispered, and turned the paper to show the others. They'd only known the slight, grubby young woman dressed as a boy with her hair stuffed into a cap. The closest they'd come to seeing the Siren was when she sang – or maybe when she'd shot those soldiers. "You'd hardly recognize her."

The others all fought for a look at the paper, but Steve just gazed down at it and nodded. "I guess that's the point."

* * *

Iron Placard on the front of an office building in Whitehall, London:

_Historical London: The Whip & Fiddle_

_From 1904-1945, this site was home to the pub "The Whip & Fiddle". Most notably the pub was a well-known favourite of Captain America and the Howling Commandos. As William Dirk, the former owner, put it: "They was always in here when they weren't off blowing up Nazis. Drinking, laughing, but never causing trouble. I'll be sorry to never see them all together here again."_

_The Whip & Fiddle was destroyed during a Luftwaffe air raid in January of 1945._

* * *

Four days later, Howard Stark watched with his arms folded across his chest as Dugan and Morita marched his lab assistant (who he'd _thought _was a genial young man named Jerry) down the SSR corridor to a holding cell. "Jerry" spat German curses at everyone who looked his way, and was currently trying to step on Morita's toes. Howard cringed.

"We intercepted him at exactly 1500 at Dover Castle, as he accessed a dead drop," Peggy explained in a crisp tone. Captain Rogers stood silently beside her. "We think we'll be able to get at least a few weeks of counterintelligence out of the dead drop before HYDRA cottons on."

Dugan shoved Jerry into the holding cell and Morita slammed the door.

Howard winced. "I think I'll be more selective in my choice of assistant, next time."

"You had better," Peggy said evenly. "You're lucky we caught him, he was passing along some of your blueprints."

"Right," Howard said distantly. Everyone was looking at him, which he would normally feel great about, but now the back of his neck felt hot. "Excellent work Pegs, Rogers." He nodded at them both and spun on his heel to return to the lab. He wanted to check if anything else was missing.

He did not hear Agent Carter say softly: "The credit doesn't belong to us."

He did not hear Captain Rogers' reply: "No." Then, a few moments later, Captain Rogers held a hand out. "But none of this'd be possible without you, Agent C– Peggy. You're doing good work."

There were a few more moments of silence. Then Agent Carter took Captain Rogers' hand and shook it. "Thank you, Steve."

* * *

Days later, Alice received a fan letter signed from _S. Ulysses. _It took her and Otto about an hour to decrypt the letter.

Things had gone pretty much back to normal for them, or as normal as things could get. Heidi had done a brilliant job of being Alice for the few days she'd been missing, though they'd had to fake an illness to explain why she didn't have any visitors, so Alice had been easing back into public life gently.

Alice had told Otto most of the truth about her time in the Italian mountains. She told him everything, in fact, apart from exactly how close her relationship with Steve was, though she suspected Otto might have guessed what she didn't disclose. He seemed disgruntled to hear that she had a connection that might distract her, but he agreed that Steve and his team sounded very promising for the future of the war.

Alice had done her best to avoid being distracted, to prove Otto wrong, but she couldn't hide the fact that the past four days had completely changed how she approached the war. She couldn't pretend to be a cold, precise manipulator any longer. Not when she had such a warm pit of hope thawing in her chest.

After some head scratching and reviewing their alphabet charts, Alice and Otto cracked the encrypted letter to find a simple message:

_GIANT IS BLIND. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS INCOMING._

Alice's eyes flicked over the message, and she smiled. As she and Otto knew, Argus in Greek legend was a hundred-eyed giant.

"They got him," she breathed.

"Or her," Otto said fairly.

"Or her," she agreed. "And that's one less weapon HYDRA has in fighting this war. We're going to get them."

"We sure are," Otto yawned. "Now let's get some sleep."

* * *

The weeks ticked on, quicker than Alice had expected. Christmas passed to meagre fanfare, then New Years, as the Siren continued her Italian tour. Alice and Otto gathered intelligence as diligently as ever, and if Alice found herself reading the newspapers a little more closely, well, there was nothing odd in that, was there?

Of course, Otto found it odd.

She was sitting in the dressing room with the paper open before her, reading about a raid by Captain America and his Invaders in Albania (_I wonder what brought them there. They've had a few random raids, but none in Italy_), when Otto cleared his throat.

"Be careful," he muttered.

Alice finished the article and looked up. "What?"

Otto was signing requisition orders for new costumes for the backup singers. "With your… the man you mentioned. He's a soldier."

fHe wasn't looking at the newspaper, but Alice snapped it shut anyway. She frowned.

Otto looked up, saw her expression, and sighed. "Soldiers don't have long lifespans."

"Oh." She looked down at the closed newspaper, then inspected her fingernails. "I know, Otto, trust me. Steve… our whole lives, I've been so terrified of him dying."

It was Otto's turn to frown.

"He was sick our whole childhood. He never complained, but I think he's very lucky he made it to adulthood. Or just stubborn. So I've spent years being terrified of him not being… strong enough, or determined enough." Her eyes burned. "So much so that I think I've been subconsciously preparing for the worst." She looked up. "But he's always been strong enough."

"Alice…"

"I know," she said briskly. "I know, Otto. You and I, we know better than anyone. But I can't act like he's dead already. That's not how hearts work."

"No," he sighed, reaching up to smooth down his thinning hair. "It isn't. That might be an easier world."

Alice stood up, folded the paper, then walked over to set her hand on Otto's shoulder. "We're not fighting for an _easier_ world, though, are we?"

He smiled, and she squeezed his shoulder.

"I just don't want to see you hurt," Otto murmured. But before Alice could answer, he stood up. "Let's prepare our packet for the Zurich performance."

* * *

Excerpt from translated book '_Lessons of Japanese Morality_' by Satomi Miyagi (1896):

_... This reminds me of the legend of Miyako Sonodayu, the Japanese master of traditional jōruri music in the Edo period, who famously went missing after climbing Tsurugidake, the most dangerous mountain in Japan. This is a reminder that if you seek inspiration in the midst of peril, peril will seek recompense._

* * *

Standing aboard a troop transport ship in the Mediterranean, Steve watched the shifting water. Bucky leaned against the prow beside him, arms crossed and his face hard.

"You ever wonder what she's up to, right now?" Steve murmured. His body ached from their last raid against a HYDRA outpost in Sardinia. They'd gotten everyone out safely, but Steve had absorbed a blast from a HYDRA cannon on his shield and been sent flying off a five-story building.

That might explain Bucky's sour mood, actually.

"Of course I do," Bucky said. He frowned. "Did you hit your head?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "I gotta be concussed to wonder about Alice?"

"No. But you haven't mentioned her much."

Steve shrugged helplessly. "What's to talk about? I have no idea where she is, what she's doing, or if…" he shook his head, still staring down at the water. "And the end of this war isn't exactly in sight."

"We're going to win it," Bucky said firmly. He wasn't the first to express this confidence: what with the Russians turning the tide on the Eastern front and the ramping-up of plans on the Western Front, things looked bad for the Nazis. It was by no means a done deal, but… for once, it didn't look like the Nazis were going to sweep across the world and swallow it whole.

"Well," Steve sighed. He didn't know what had come over him – he hadn't wallowed in melancholy like this for a while. Perhaps it was because it had been a month since he'd watched Alice walk off into the treeline in Italy, and nothing had changed. The war went on and he and his men fought lightning fast, effective raids without really seeming to deal a devastating blow. "Then there's not much to say until then."

"I can think of some things to say," Bucky said with an edge in his voice. "Like… what would Alice say about you _running in front of cannons_?"

Despite himself, Steve smiled as he looked up into Bucky's annoyed face.

"Don't you smile at me like that, idiot," Bucky said, though Steve could see a smile tugging at his mouth. "If Alice were here she'd say _you're an absolute moron_, and _just because you think you're invincible doesn't mean you are_, and _a tiny shield is not an effective weapon against massive cannons-_"

"Alice sure seems to have a lot to say."

Bucky frowned a moment longer, but then his frustration melted away. "Well. If you've been wondering what Alice has been up to, then I think you'll enjoy the telegram we just got from Agent Carter."

Steve frowned. "What do you mean?"

* * *

Alice had done dozens of these performances in Switzerland by now. They were always late, for one thing, since they had to go through so much paperwork and security at the border to the neutral country, and the workers at the performance hall were distant and distrustful of her and Otto, a marked difference from the reverence they received in Nazi-ruled countries. She'd dressed herself, since Heidi was busy on another assignment in Italy, and tonight she sang her way through a few arias from her brief opera career, as well as a few original songs.

The lights were low, muted, and the atmosphere intense. Alice could sense her audience's displeasure at the Nazi songs warring with their enjoyment of her voice. She had an image as the German songbird to keep up, but she also wanted to keep getting invited back, so during the short break she quickly whispered some instructions to her accompaniment. After that, they reeled through some French arias and the audience perked up.

Alice let her mind drift. As always, the true purpose for the Swiss performances was to meet with Peggy. It would be the first time she'd seen her since meeting Steve and his team in the Italian forest, and Alice had dozens of questions percolating in her mind. She wondered if Steve and Bucky had told Peggy about her. If Peggy had known they knew each other.

And if Peggy knew, then Alice had just one question for her: _How could you let us both go on in ignorance and pain like that? _Alice knew the value of secrets but that didn't seem like a necessary one to have kept.

The song changed, and Alice smiled at her audience.

She knew better than to believe that Peggy would have put their friendship above the mission – that was part of the reason Alice respected her so much.

Well. Alice had been wondering for a month now. And tonight she'd finally have the chance to ask.

* * *

When she returned to the dressing room after thanking the performance hall owners profusely (in French), she found Otto waiting with a note.

"It seems our friend wants to meet us on the roof," he murmured as he burned the note in the nearby gaslamp.

Odd, but not unusual. Alice felt too eager to change, so she grabbed her winter coat and they headed up. The performance hall was emptying out, occupied now only by backstage hands who barely gave Alice and Otto a second glance as they made their way to the service stairs.

The stairwell was cold and grim, and the door at the top opened onto near darkness. Otto stepped out first, one arm hovering behind him as if to keep Alice at bay. He peered around. "Can't see anyone," he murmured.

"Over here," came Peggy's clear, precise voice.

Alice pushed out past Otto, impatient now, and turned just as Peggy melted out of the shadows at the far end of the rooftop. The lights of Zurich glowed dimly below them, and above them the stars were obscured by indistinct clouds. A frozen wind dragged across the rooftop. Peggy wore a long, thick coat and her face was obscured by a woollen hat and scarf.

For a few long moments, they all just looked at each other.

"Apologies for bringing you up here," Peggy began. "Last time, someone saw me leaving your dressing room, and I wanted to avoid setting a pattern."

"Smart," Alice replied.

Otto looked between them. Alice hadn't confided her questions and concerns in him, but he had sensed her increasingly impatient mood as the performance drew near.

Peggy took a few paces toward them, her face inscrutable, and Alice couldn't stand it any longer.

"Did-"

"Yes," Peggy replied instantly. Her expression shifted, becoming searching and earnest. "Captain Rogers told me everything about the last mission."

Alice let out a breath. Well. She'd been worrying about how to ask, but it seemed she needn't have bothered.

Peggy looked uncomfortable for the smallest moment. "I owe you an apology, Alice."

Alice eyed her. "You didn't know we knew each other, did you?"

Peggy shook her head. "That's why I'm sorry. I should have known. I made a mistake."

Alice let out a breath. She had known that Peggy was human just like the rest of them, capable of mistakes, but the proof of it was startling. And maybe a little relieving. "Thank you," she said. "But I suppose… there's no reason for you to have known. We've all kept secrets."

"Yes," Peggy said heavily. She paced closer again and soon they were within arm's distance, Otto silent by Alice's side. Peggy was easier to read up close. Her eyes were warm. "How are you? I'm asking as a… friend." Alice fought down a smile – this was the first time either of them had acknowledged it. "It must have been a shock."

Alice finally allowed her smile to break loose. "I'm fine. Better for having you here."

And like that, any remaining tension bled away. So quickly that if Otto had blinked he might have missed it, they pulled each other in for a tight, swift embrace before stepping apart again. Peggy then smiled at Otto, and they leaned in to kiss each other on the cheek.

"Well, let's get to work, shall we?" Peggy said with a smile in her voice.

"I suppose so," Alice nodded. "Congratulations on getting Argus, by the way."

"Yes." Peggy sighed. "He was Howard's lab assistant, got past our security by using a dead man's records. Clever stuff. Though we owe our thanks to the both of you. We wouldn't have unearthed him if it weren't for you."

Alice and Otto shared a glance. "Not at all," Otto said modestly.

Alice cocked her head. "When we were looking into it all, it seemed there's been a few eyes watching the SSR. I'd keep your ear to the ground for any other signs of espionage."

"Oh, I will," Peggy reassured. "In this world, I trust no one implicitly."

Alice smiled. Then Otto pulled out their latest intelligence packet, which was a mixture of intercepted plans and communiques, rumor from around Italy and Germany, and notes on each German leader they'd encountered recently.

Otto talked Peggy through it. Peggy nodded and asked questions, but towards the end she looked up and saw Alice standing with her hands in her pockets and her face troubled.

"Something on your mind?" Peggy prompted.

Alice frowned down at her feet, which were freezing in high heels, before looking up. "This isn't… it isn't related to what _we've _been doing, but I've noticed that there's been lots of raids in other countries. Raids by… well, by Captain Rogers and his team." Peggy's expression became appraising.

Alice swallowed and went on. "It's not my place to tell the SSR where I think they should go, but… HYDRA prides themselves on their resilience. If we want to truly fight them we need to concentrate our whole focus on them, one place after another. I think the SSR should concentrate their efforts wholly on Italy, flush HYDRA out and stop them spreading. Each time the… the _SSR _leaves, we give HYDRA time to recover."

Alice had been anticipating a smooth, cool look and a change of subject, but Peggy nodded seriously. "I agree with you. I recently discussed this with Colonel Phillips, and that's the approach we're going to follow from now on. We get actionable intelligence from all over Europe regarding HYDRA, but recently we've begun to suspect that this is partly HYDRA attempting to divide us and distract us. Italy is one of their strongholds and a large basis of their mechanical output – as we've learned, thanks to you – and we need to concentrate there."

Peggy nodded once more, tapping her fingers against the briefcase Otto had given her. "So we don't require much change from you on that count, other than that we might ask you to be more flexible in your travel plans in the coming months, in case we need location-specific information."

"I'm sure we could manage that," nodded Otto. "We have to return to Berlin in a few weeks to touch base with the Propaganda Department but they'll agree to repost the Siren to Italy, I think. They're losing musicians all over the place so their last worry is a singer who _wants _to go to the front."

"Excellent," Peggy said with a grim smile. "Now, there's something I wanted to discuss that goes beyond the 107th Tactical Team. Our focus with them will be Italy, but… there are other, larger plans."

Alice's eyebrows rose. _Larger than HYDRA?_

"I can't tell you much, as the name of the game now is counterintelligence. But over the next few weeks and months, here's what I need you to do…"

* * *

Alice and Otto returned to Italy the next day, and a few days later, it seemed, so did Captain America and his _Invaders. _They were growing harder to ignore. Stories of their lightning raids and their indestructible leader were whispered in the streets of Rome and sneered at by Nazi generals during wine-drenched parties. Alice wondered if they'd always been so infamous, or if she was just hypersensitive to it now.

Sometimes she found herself reading an article in the paper describing Captain America's last 'nuisance raid' into Nazi-controlled Italy and experiencing a kind of double vision: she had to constantly remind herself _they're talking about Steve._

It was hard to tell from the German media, but it seemed Steve and his team were doing what Alice had suggested – redoubling their efforts against the HYDRA troops entrenched in Italian soil, hitting them hard and not letting up. Alice and Otto listened to the rumors that raced through their network, noticing with satisfaction whenever one of the HYDRA locations they had discovered went silent.

In response, they redoubled their efforts to pin down the remaining HYDRA locations. Steve had apparently seen a map of a few base locations across Europe, but the most specific he could be about the Italian one was "In the northwest, near the border to Switzerland". Italy was not a small country, and the 'northwest' was not a small place.

In addition, from what Alice could make out, HYDRA not only had a main factory but also two large warehouses and at least one occupied town. And since the loss of the Austrian base, they'd gotten very good at hiding. Their troops stayed mobile, looting towns and farms for resources and capturing civilians as forced labor.

In addition to chasing rumors of HYDRA in Italy, Alice reached out to some of her friends abroad. Specifically, those in France. Peggy had not been able to give Alice any specifics but it was clear the Allies had _some _kind of plan for France in the coming months. Alice had been asked to redouble her connections in the country, and learn everything she could about German expectations regarding Allied plans.

She quickly learned, from her various resistance contacts (especially Vera Izard at the OCM, who had helped Alice get back to Brooklyn), that the Germans anticipated an incoming attack. But they didn't know when, or where.

Peggy had further instructions for Alice upon hearing this: _spread lies. _

And so, through her friends in the resistance and her connections within the German leadership, Alice lied her heart out.

_The Americans have secretly allied with Spain and are going to launch a land attack through the border. _

_The Australians are being pulled out of Egypt in July for a massive attack._

_Churchill and FDR met last weekend to discuss something. I don't know what they spoke about, but they requisitioned detailed maps of Brittany._

She was careful with her lies. She never spread them directly herself. She had friends send coded radio messages over channels she knew the SS were monitoring, left notes written in French in compromised dead drops, and had allies speak 'drunkenly' to known Nazi intelligence officers. It was difficult to arrange this from afar, but Alice had been forming connections in these countries for years. She knew how whispers worked.

And when she heard these whispers echoed back by German intelligence as they sought to find out more, she allowed herself a few moments to bask in self-satisfaction. But then she got back to work.

* * *

Excerpt from podcast series _The Second Great War_, episode 'The Great Deception' (2013):

_"So the important thing to remember here is that German coastal defences in France were stretched thin - they just didn't have the resources to completely blockade each beach. So what they did was concentrate their resources on the place where they thought attacks would come._

_"The Allies figured this out, and that began what would become one of the largest military deceptions in history. They called it Operation Bodyguard. From July of 1943 right up until after D-Day, hundreds of Allied commanders, soldiers, agents and allies worked tirelessly to trick the Nazis as to the time and place of the major attack on France. They used double agents to plant false information, and allowed various transmissions to be intercepted. The 'story' they wanted to sell was that the invasion of Northwest Europe would come later than was actually planned, and would occur in Pas de Calais, the Balkans, southern France, and Norway. _

_"What is even more astounding than the scope and boldness of this plan, in my opinion, is the fact that it actually worked."_

* * *

The situation in Italy was growing tense. After months of stalling at the Winter Line in the south of the country, the Allies had redoubled their efforts to push north. Fighting was fierce in the Cassino region and lines were shifting every day. Meanwhile, Steve and the 107th Tactical Team had learned how to fight beyond the front, with the assistance of Air Force parachute drops and a very helpful network of Italian Resistance who offered them vehicles and munitions whenever they ventured deep into Nazi-occupied Italy.

Alice monitored their progress, and fed all intelligence she could back to SSR command in the south of Italy. This was done through a series of resistance allies, dead drops, and constantly-changing radio channels and telegram addresses. Slow, and only about 70% of their intelligence actually made it, but it was the best they had. They never used the same route twice.

One day in late January, Alice heard from one of her resistance contacts, an elderly baker in a small village near San Marino, that a troop of men in strange uniforms had been sighted in the next village over.

After assigning one of her runners to check out the rumor (the Siren couldn't exactly traipse from village to village with no excuse), Alice finally got a solid lead: not only was the village host to the occasional strangely-uniformed soldier in search of booze or company for the night, but just a few miles north was a large warehouse that the villagers were afraid to go near. There were rumors that people went missing if they got too close.

Alice decided that this information needed to go directly into the hands of those who could do something about it.

After a long night of considering her options and implementing a plan, Alice arrived the next morning at the post office with a gauzy shawl around her hair and accompanied by the hotel porter who huffed under the wooden case she'd asked him to carry for her.

The post office employee looked up, and after a second of confusion realized who she was. "_La Sirena_!" he exclaimed, eyes wide, before ushering her towards his counter. "How may I help you?"

Alice gestured to the box the hotel porter carried, just as the man lowered it carefully onto the counter. "I'd like this posted to Messina, please."

The employee's face fell a little. "That's in the south, _Signora. _On the… other side."

"I know," Alice said with the barest hint of impatience. "I understood the post was still running, though?"

"It is, but I… the package will have to be checked, _Signora._"

In her pockets, Alice's hands clenched. "That's fine."

"May I ask what the package contains?"

"It's wine, for a friend of mine from Germany who lives in the south of Italy now." This was all true, save for maybe the _friend _part. One of the other Propaganda Department musicians, a male opera singer named Heinrich, had fled Germany at the end of last year to avoid charges of fraud. He was still a staunch Nazi, though he kept it quiet in Messina, and the Propaganda Department would find nothing odd in Alice sending him gifts. The SSR plant at the post office in Messina knew to divert any packages from Alice to Heinrich straight to SSR command.

"I understand," the employee nodded. With an apologetic smile, he disappeared behind a door at the back of the post office.

Alice turned to the hotel porter and tipped him generously for his efforts. As the porter left, the back room door opened once more to admit the same postal employee – and a uniformed Gestapo officer.

Alice's heart flipped in her chest but she merely smiled politely.

"_Gnädige Frau_," [_Ma'am_] nodded the Gestapo officer, who looked to be in his thirties and bore a grim, professional expression. _No charming this one_. The postal employee stayed at least three paces away from the officer, who came up to eye the wooden box. "Contents?"

"A dozen bottles of Sangiovese wine," Alice replied, hoisted her handbag higher on her shoulder.

"And for what purpose are you posting them to Messina?"

"They're a gift for my friend. I can give you his address-"

The postal employee darted forward to hand Alice a form – written in German, not Italian – with space for postal details. Alice bent over the counter to fill it out. As she did, the Gestapo officer pulled out a metal crowbar.

"I'm going to inspect it," he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

"Very well," Alice said evenly. She finished writing Heinrich's address, and tried not to wince as the officer cracked open the metal box.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as the officer pulled out each carefully-packaged bottle of wine, inspected the label, the paper packaging, the note she'd written for Heinrich, and the insides of the box. Alice's heart thudded against her chest.

When he reached for the cork of one of the bottles, she looked up. "Oh really, must you? This isn't cheap wine, sir-" her complaints died in her mouth as the officer popped open the cork without even looking at her. The rich smell of deep red wine oozed into the air.

The officer peered down the neck of the bottle, sloshed the liquid inside, and drew a long sniff.

"That's the 1930 vintage," Alice sighed. She glanced at the postal employee, who shot her a commiserating look. She slid the completed form across the counter to him, her fingers carefully steady.

With a narrow glance up at Alice, the Gestapo officer stuffed the cork back into the bottle. Then with slow, careful deliberation, he proceeded to uncork and smell each consecutive bottle, impervious to Alice's silent frustration and the postal employee's exasperation.

Finally, when the post office stunk like liquor and the officer had found nothing but wine, he recorked the last bottle, made a note on the form Alice had filled out, then strode through the back door again without so much as a polite apology.

"That will be twenty thousand _lira_, _Signora_," muttered the pink-faced postal employee. "I'll see that the bottles are repackaged securely."

"Thank you," Alice smiled as she handed over the money.

She turned and strode out of the post office, saving her smile for when she'd passed through the doors. The Gestapo officer had been so careful in his search of the box and the bottles. And yet he hadn't thought to check the corks.

Alice had spent hours last night carefully hollowing out each cork and squeezing in rolled up papers – her message, miniaturised maps of the area around the HYDRA warehouse, and ways to contact local resistance. Then she'd weighted the corks carefully and sealed them with putty.

Alice cast one last glance back at the post office, hiding her wry smile. _Time well spent._

When the SSR had swapped out the corks, Heinrich would no doubt enjoy his wine.

* * *

The first note Alice received from Steve was a surprise.

When she received the note from one of her couriers, encrypted so it appeared to be song lyrics, she assumed it was one of the various secretive notes she received as part of being the spider at the center of an information web. But when she reopened the note in the privacy of her hotel room in Rome, she realized she recognized the handwriting and her heart shuddered to a halt.

Using one of the methods from her childhood, she decrypted the note in no time:

_Thanks for the intel about the warehouse near San Marino. Got anything for the area north of Florence?  
\- Ulysses_

Alice traced Steve's familiar, elegant letters with a smile. _Someone really ought to teach him how to disguise his handwriting. _

She allowed herself a few more moments to trace the page, then burned the paper with her bedside candle. This was a strange reminder that Steve really wasn't that far away from her most of the time, though they existed in totally different worlds.

Sitting on the edge of her bed with her chin in her hand, she wondered why the information request hadn't come through the SSR. But then it clicked: Steve's team worked under the SSR, but they moved too quickly and independently to run everything by Peggy and Phillips all the time. If they needed intelligence about an area, they needed it swiftly and directly.

Alice tapped her chin. _I can work with that._

It took her a day to gather all the intelligence she and Otto had about that area, then craft a response and hide it in a box of biscuits. Alice gave the biscuits to the same courier and told them to send it back the way it had come. Not a very sophisticated method, but Alice had also included instructions for their next communication.

She could see it all expanding out in her mind: dead drops, couriers who could cross the front lines, radio signals and ciphers. It would be difficult since Steve and his team were so mobile, but the challenge was almost exciting.

* * *

Steve received a dusty, battered box of biscuits at the camp in Pompeii the next day. It didn't take him long to find the message pasted beneath a false layer on the lid, and once he'd figured out the code he gathered his men, unable to conceal his smile.

"Homer says that HYDRA likely has a mobile troop travelling east of where we were planning to hit. Probably about a hundred and fifty men. We could pair with the resistance forces there and drive east, take out the HYDRA troops first."

The others instantly started discussing this new development, but Steve had eyes only for the pencil-written letters on the cardboard in his hands. He'd used her SSR name, but this message wasn't signed from Homer. It was signed _Ulysses._

* * *

Over the next few weeks, a budding line of communication sprang up between Alice and the 107th Tactical Team. It was interspersed and brief, barely a blip in the wider network of what Alice had going on. But it felt like the sun shining between the clouds.

Otto tried to come up with a reason for Alice to cease contact, since anything relating to the heart made him suspicious, but he couldn't deny that the communication had increased the Tactical Team's effectiveness. Alice and Otto were able to give them fast, actionable intel on the ground that had them working moves ahead of the Wehrmacht and HYDRA.

Of course, then the Siren's scheduled Italian tour came to an end.

Heidi took over the network and communication with Steve and his team, and Alice, Otto, and the rest of their retinue returned to Berlin. Alice's backup singers were pleased. Their families had missed them, and no one could deny that the situation in Italy was growing more and more precarious.

Alice and Otto strategized the best way to get back.

A few days after their return (Alice had been busy sorting out a mold issue in her apartment and avoiding Kurt's calls), they arrived at the Propaganda Department offices. Alice and Otto shook officials' hands and sipped the whiskey brought in by the secretary. The men retired to another office while Alice sat in the makeup chair, and then they came to the main reason for the visit: a new set of press photographs of the Siren.

She didn't wear the usual white performance dress this time around. She had a few different costumes – an SS-_Gelfolge _uniform, a housedress, and a traditional _dirndl _apron dress, for whatever reason.

As Alice preened on set, half-blinded by the lights, she watched Otto and a handful of Propaganda Department officers chatting with each other behind the photographer. The main producer, Karloff, seemed to have forgotten to iron his collar this morning. And now she looked closer, it seemed his hair was going grey.

Alice couldn't quite hear them over the whine and _snap _of the cameras, but she'd been practicing her lipreading for years on stage so she was pretty sure they were discussing a new album.

"Let's have a costume change," called the photographer, and Alice ducked behind a screen to pull on the SS women's branch uniform. She emerged to see Otto and Karloff shaking hands.

"We'll work on it in Italy, I promise," Otto nodded. "We should be ready to record by March."

_More work_, Alice thought resignedly. _I don't know where he thinks we'll find the time, in between spreading French counterintelligence and trying to hunt down HYDRA in Italy._

She made a mental note to dredge up her lyric notebook from the bottom of her suitcase, and moved back toward the set.

"No," came a cross voice from Otto and Karloff's direction, and Alice looked up to see the Propaganda Department senior secretary, Inge. The severe-faced blonde strode toward Alice and pointed at her uniform. "You have put the Iron Cross on the wrong side. It should go on your _left_ breast, not your right."

Alice paused for a moment, startled into silence. Then she glanced down at the scratchy brown coat she wore, and saw that she had indeed pinned the Iron Cross to the right side. She looked up again. "Oh I do apologise – you're in the SS-_Gelfolge_, am I right?" Even as she said it she noticed the _Gelfolge _pin on Inge's secretary uniform. Alice smiled and adjusted her Iron Cross.

Inge watched her, unimpressed, then turned to take Karloff's whiskey glass.

Alice strode onto the photography set, adjusting her cap.

"You're certain you won't mind being sent back to Italy?" Karloff called to Alice as she followed the photographer's directions. Alice silently marveled at how Otto had somehow made them think that sending Alice back to Italy was their idea.

"The soldiers and people are so welcoming in Italy, and I have no fear for my own safety, Karloff," she replied as the photographer adjusted her skirt. "I miss Vienna and Berlin when I'm gone, but I can survive a little homesickness."

"You are good," sighed Karloff. Inge frowned at the back of the room, and didn't stop even when Alice met her eye. Alice smiled, and Inge looked away.

The camera flashbulb went off again and Alice sighed through her nose. A drop of sweat slid down the back of her neck under the hot lights.

"You're the mother of the nation!" called the photographer, tapping his chin as a reminder for her to lift hers. "Savior of innocents, the pride of the Aryan race. Pop your shoulder for me now."

Alice lifted her shoulder, tilted her head up, and stared down the camera. The Iron Cross felt heavy on her chest. _Keep up the performance, Siren._

She felt as if she'd been performing on a stage in front of the whole world for years. Always a false face, words that didn't belong to her, smiles she didn't feel.

She wondered what she'd find in the darkness when the curtains finally drew shut.


	43. Chapter Thirty Four

**The sirens' song, _The Odyssey: _"_Over all the generous earth, we know everything that happens._"**

* * *

February, 1944

A month after their return to Italy, Alice did not think that she'd had a single day off. The Siren certainly had breaks from her performances, and Al didn't sneak out _every _night to run the resistance network, but those rest days never seemed to coincide.

Tonight she wore Al's loose, dark clothes, even though her face still felt raw from scrubbing off her makeup from her morning performance for the _Kriegsmarine _Reserves in Florence.

She crouched on the top of a shrubby cliff overlooking a beach in Tuscany, weeds tangled around her ankles, but she wasn't alone. Otto, disguised as an old, stooped man with silver hair and a bowed hunch, crouched beside her. He'd painted fine wrinkles onto his face, aging him decades. Alice felt a jolt of surprise every time she looked at him because of how genuine the disguise was, reminding her of those days of constantly being startled by the new shape of Steve.

It wasn't unusual for Otto to accompany Alice on missions, but in this instance she was really accompanying him, since the mission was his brainchild. Alice had been caught up with several press duties recently due to the upcoming album. Plus she'd almost been caught snooping at a general's house last week and still felt a little shaken. Her main task for this evening was to smuggle some maps of the region in her jacket, and to organize their allies in the Italian Resistance.

Tuscany was miles north of the Winter Line, but that didn't mean the situation was any less dire – the Nazis were suspicious of the local Italians no matter where they were.

There were no signs of any troops out here, though. She and Otto crouched in the weeds as the last dredges of sunlight dripped below the horizon out at sea, and worked out the finishing touches for the Siren's upcoming album.

Otto hummed the melody to the third song, just loud enough to be heard over the cool breeze which rustled the low-lying shrubbery. Alice chimed in with accompanying harmonies and revisions, her ear tuned to the song but her eyes fixed on the dark ocean below. They had a good vantage point from the top of their sandy incline.

"I think we ought to change _Soldaten _[_Soldiers_] to _Helden _[_Heroes_]," she whispered contemplatively. "They like that kind of rubbish."

"You're right," Otto nodded. "Then with those changes, we just need the coda for the fifth song."

"I'm working on it, I just need to speak with the pianist on Saturday-"

"We have to mail the sheet music to Berlin on Saturday-"

"So we'll mail it in the afternoon," she replied calmly. She squinted down at her watch, angling it so the moonlight illuminated the hands. She glanced up, scanned their surroundings, then pulled out her flashlight and flashed it twice in an easterly direction. She waited a few moments, then spotted an answering double flash at the top of a hill about a mile away.

"All clear," Otto noted. He turned back towards the dark, shifting ocean. "They're late, though."

"I don't imagine I'd be in much of a hurry to get through mine-infested waters." Between Corsica (currently held by the Free French) and Tuscany lay 130 miles of hostile, mined ocean.

"There is that," he admitted. They both peered out at the water.

During the day, even in winter, the waters here were a clear crystal blue and the sandy beaches a startling white. Any other year this would be a wonderful holiday destination. But Alice doubted anyone had gone swimming down there in a long time, save for the occasional overconfident Nazi.

"_There_." Otto pointed, and Alice followed his finger to see a hazy shape materializing in the water. As it drew closer, she spotted the white trail of water stretching behind it, and then a gleam of metal, and then the shape materialized into a small landing craft. She squinted and counted ten figures aboard.

"Let's get going," Otto murmured.

Alice flashed three long signal lights to their lookouts in the east, then she and Otto carefully made their way down the sandy and precarious cliffside. By grabbing handfuls of the coarse, sturdy grass they managed to reach the shore without incident (aside from Otto showering Alice with sand every time he took a step).

By the time they reached the shore the troop vessel seemed to have vanished, leaving the water dark and empty again. But Alice knew that they would have docked in the rocky cove off the edge of the beach, which was covered by tall frond-like trees.

She held out a hand to help Otto down onto the rocks overhanging the water, then led the way as they picked their way around. The water sloshed and dragged below their feet, and the chill wind rolling off the ocean cut through Alice's layers.

As she led the way around into the rocky cove, trying not to slip in the darkness, Alice heard voices up ahead. They were indistinct and almost completely disguised under the rush of breaking waves.

Otto's hand landed on her shoulder and forced her into a crouch. "Careful now," he murmured.

Alice nodded, peering into the darkness, then let out a low whistle that ascended three notes.

The voices fell silent. Then an answering whistle returned, descending the same three notes.

Alice and Otto nodded at each other in the dark, then crept forward. She sensed Otto reach for the gun tucked into his belt, and her hand rested on the knife in her pocket.

The rock beneath their feet gave way to shifting sand, and the stars above were obscured by closely-pressed trees, and suddenly Alice could see the troop carrier: empty and docked on a narrow sand beach. Ten figures stood on the beach around it. Alice saw the glinting points of weapons, but the figures were utterly still.

"_Turisti_?" [_Tourists?_] she called in a male Tuscan accent, with one arm held out as if to cover Otto.

The weapons ahead of them lowered.

"_Devi essere la nostra guida turistica_," [_You must be our tour guide_] came a wry female voice in the darkness, and Alice beamed.

She and Otto straightened and trudged along the beach. As they did, the moonlight glowed through the thick fronds to illuminate the figures ahead of them. Alice first noticed Steve: he wore the same colorful uniform, and his shield was a metal halo just visible behind his shoulders. He drew in a breath as he saw her, his chest expanding, and when she drew close enough to see his eyes they practically blazed with light.

Bucky stood at Steve's right, weight slouched onto one hip and a small grin quirking his lips as she approached. The rest of the team arrayed behind them, features shadowy in the darkness. As she grew closer, Alice picked out differences: Steve's uniform seemed more beat up than the last time she'd seen it, Dugan had a new firearm and Dernier had a black eye. But all of them were beaming.

Two strangers stood by the boat, and from their clothes Alice supposed they were the troop carrier's pilots.

The tenth figure stood in trousers and a brown leather jacket, her hands on her hips and her lips still painted, remarkably, red.

Alice looked around at them all, her heart full and her chest swelling, and her eyes drawn unstoppably to Steve. Her fingers tingled and she felt an overwhelming urge to run towards him and sail into his arms, like they'd done at the airfield in December. The blazing look in Steve's eyes told her that he wanted the same. But they both knew they couldn't.

Alice settled for swallowing hard and taking measured paces across the beach toward them. She couldn't help the grin on her face though. "Hello, everyone. Welcome to Tuscany."

Peggy smiled, then raised her eyebrows. "The location is secure?"

"No one should come by here until dawn, but we've got lookouts posted all the same. If they see anything they're going to knock a boulder down the cliffside, so keep an ear out for that."

"Excellent," Peggy nodded.

Otto shifted a little behind Alice, and she moved aside – she'd been unconsciously covering him. "Everyone, this is Otto. Otto, you know Peggy, obviously, and this is-"

"Oh, I know," he said wryly as he nodded around at them all. "I've heard good things. And bad things, from the papers, but that's what I like to hear."

Steve's men chuckled and murmured a chorus of greetings. Otto and Steve shook hands briefly, which Alice watched with a vague sense of worlds colliding.

Otto moved to shake Bucky's hand, and Steve and Alice's gazes were drawn together once more. It had been two months since they'd last seen each other, and though Alice had been busy every day of those two months she still hadn't gone a day without thinking of seeing him again. Thinking of the promises and not-quite-plans they'd made. His eyes were bright beneath his cowl, looking back at her with a hint of wistfulness and relief, and yet still with the glint of a hidden smile.

"Oh, go on then," came a voice just to Alice's right, and she glanced over to see Peggy giving her and Steve an exasperated look.

Alice glanced back at Steve and didn't need telling twice. They reached each other in two strides and seized each other – not in a kiss, they weren't _that _hopeless – but their arms wound around each other and squeezed so tightly that it couldn't be mistaken for a friendly embrace. Alice buried her face in his shoulder. Steve's fingers curled into the edge of her jacket, brushing her ribcage, and Alice banged her knuckles against his shield. She felt overwhelmed. She'd forgotten how big he'd gotten.

After a few seconds – not long enough – they pulled apart a little breathlessly. Bucky was next, lifting Alice off her toes for a few seconds just to make her scowl, and then she strode through the 107th Tactical Team, shaking hands and exchanging greetings. She stepped back to see Peggy with her hand on Otto's shoulder, greeting each other with a smile.

"Shall we get down to business?" Alice prompted, as if she weren't the one holding them up in the first place.

Peggy nodded. "Let's begin with Operation Olive."

Alice and Otto nodded. Operation Olive wasn't their primary mission for tonight, but this doubled as their monthly intelligence meet, so there were other orders of business. Otto looked to Alice, and she dug into a hidden compartment of her shoe to pull out 6 bullet casings. As she handed them over to Peggy, she explained their contents.

"Open those up and you'll find more photographs – the first one is a report Otto found about HYDRA intelligence on HYDRA activities, and the other five are what we believe are aerial photographs of what we think is the main HYDRA factory. We don't know the exact location, but we were thinking that by cross-referencing terrain you might be able to get close."

"Excellent work," Peggy said, putting the bullet casings in an inside pocket of her jacket. She didn't tell them how she would put the intelligence to use – she never did. The 107th Tactical Team eyed the bullet casings with impressed looks.

"Also," Alice added, "We believe we've pinned down the location for HYDRA's secondary warehouse." Steve's head jerked up and his team's eyebrows raised. "It's in Liguria, east of Genoa. The exact coordinates are included in the film in those bullets."

Eyebrows raised, Morita pulled a map out of his jacket pocket and searched for Genoa.

"How on _earth_ did you find it?" Peggy marveled. Despite the 107th Tactical Team's lightning-fast raids, HYDRA's Italian main factory, secondary warehouse and the rumored occupied town had remained elusive. Otto had discovered the town a week ago – prompting this mission – but the SSR had not expected to discover either of the others so soon.

Alice hesitated. _This _was how she almost got caught last week. "Well, we knew that _Generaloberst _[_General_] Vietinghoff and his officers in the Wehrmacht had found some intelligence about the HYDRA warehouse location, because we heard they were conducting bombing raids on it. The Nazis hate HYDRA almost as much as we do, nowadays. So we figured it out from there."

Otto eyed her. "You may as well tell them all of it."

She avoided his gaze. "That about covers it, I think."

Otto sighed and faced Peggy. "She broke into Vietinghoff's office – against my advice – and used his telephone to call the airfield and… you know how she can mimic voices, she pretended to be Vietinghoff as she asked the _Luftwaffe _commander to confirm the coordinates they'd been bombing."

Alice had been watching Steve's men, and saw expressions of concern and bewilderment cross their faces. But not Steve – he didn't show her fear. Instead he met her eyes and they shared a grim, determined look of _we got them._ A shared _screw you _to the Nazis and HYDRA. Alice suppressed a grin.

"Well, and it worked, didn't it?" Alice cut in.

Otto raised an eyebrow. "So we shan't discuss the fact that you had to hide in the man's coat closet for three hours since he returned to do some paperwork, shall we?"

Alice colored, and then she saw concern flit onto Steve's face. Her stomach dropped.

"Alice _Hedwig _Moser-" Bucky exclaimed in part frustration, part concern.

Dugan snorted. "_Hedwig_?"

Alice glared at Bucky, too furious to speak, and he returned her gaze, unrepentant and annoyed.

But Steve smiled at the looks of bewilderment on his men's faces. "Yeah, we only found out what her middle name was when she almost got arrested for trying to illegally change it when she was fourteen."

Alice's anger ebbed. "I would've managed it, but that Billy Puller gave me rubbish false documents." That turned Bucky's annoyance into a reluctant smile, and the tension faded.

"Regardless," Peggy cut in, amused, "It sounds like you did excellent work."

Otto sighed. Alice didn't know what he'd been hoping for: for her to get in trouble with Peggy? She'd found good intel. She knew this was why Otto despised personal connections: they made an operative worry, act irrationally. She felt flattered that she and Otto had grown close enough for him to worry about her, but it also lit up a spark of concern in her chest for him. Because this was the last thing he'd wanted out of their alliance.

_Oh well, _she thought. _He'll just have to deal with it._

"So," Bucky said, bringing them back to the point, "After tonight's mission we can hit that warehouse, and then there's just the main factory to go." His voice was both excited and wary.

"Exactly," Otto said. "Though they know their Italian stronghold is shaky, so be ready for unexpected firepower and tactics."

"We will," Steve said seriously. He set his hands on his hips. "Is there anything to add about tonight's mission?"

Alice and Otto shook their heads, even as Alice's stomach sank a little further. The reason they were all gathered here was because three weeks ago, Otto had discovered the small town HYDRA had occupied: a former holiday resort in Tuscany, which the science division had commandeered for their own purposes.

Alice had only gotten as close as a nearby mountain range, where she'd taken some aerial photographs they'd passed on a week ago, but Otto had been right up to the fenceline. Through a few days of observation and a hurried conversation with a group of British POWs who'd been working by the electrified fence, Otto had worked out that HYDRA was using the town as a base to mine for resources for their weapons.

After communicating this information along, as well as the names of the POWs, it had come out that some of Major Falsworth's friends were being held in that camp.

Eyeing Falsworth now, Alice thought she saw heavier lines of tension in his face, though it was difficult to tell. He was nothing if not professional.

"Our intelligence remains the same as it was yesterday," Otto answered Peggy. "I had a scout watching the camp all day, and they report that the number of POWs doesn't appear to have changed. Operation Omelette is ready to go ahead."

Monty inclined his head, and Steve nodded grimly.

Peggy checked her wristwatch. "While we've still got time, how are our ongoing plans? Have you heard anything more about the location of their main factory?"

"We're a few weeks away, I'm sure of it," Otto said, his German accent pronounced amongst the other varied voices. "We've got everyone on the lookout."

"It'll take us a few weeks to push back their lines to this warehouse," Steve said, tapping Morita's map.

"At least we're not waiting around for the Allies to push through the Winter Line anymore," Bucky commented.

"Speaking of which," Alice said, "One of our couriers was arrested last week after getting the latest HYDRA plans through to you. He managed to escape and we've got him in a safe place now, but we've been discussing the need for a better line of communication. The Allies are still all the way down south at the Winter Line, and the further you guys push into Nazi territory the more complicated it is to get in contact with you. Either we have to figure out a long line of communication past the Winter Line, which isn't guaranteed to reach you wherever you are in enemy territory, or we have to figure out where you are. Our couriers know the risks, but we can't keep putting so many of them at risk for a message."

Steve nodded, frowning. "What do you suggest?"

Peggy's eyebrow quirked a little and she glanced between them, as if surprised at Steve for asking Alice's advice.

Alice pressed on. "Well, we think we've come up with a solution." She quickly explained the plan she and Otto had set up, and Peggy's eyebrows hiked further up her forehead. Alice handed over some papers describing the new plan to both Peggy and Steve. It was one of her most complex codes yet, developed in tandem with Otto. She tried to conceal quite how proud of it she was, but she knew from the light in Steve's eyes that he could tell.

"We'll review this at the SSR," Peggy said, looking over the notes. "But this definitely has promise." She folded the paper and put it in her pocket. "Well then, I think that concludes our meeting."

Steve nodded and turned to his men. "Alright. Everyone ready?" He was met by a chorus of nods and murmurs of assent from his now steely-eyed team. He nodded. "Good. Let's review the plan."

Morita laid his maps of the area on the sand along with a compass, and they all gathered around as Gabe shone a flashlight at it. Whether by chance or on purpose (Alice definitely purposefully sidled) Alice and Steve ended up side by side.

Alice tried not to fidget as she listened to them reviewing their battle plan, pointing to the pre-drawn lines and x-marks on the map. She knew they didn't have any backup: they were way too far north for infantry support, and the ocean was too hot for the navy. They were to have some air support in an hour and a half, provided the _Luftwaffe _didn't keep them at bay. She reassured herself by eyeing the duffle bags by their feet, which she knew were packed full of firepower and Stark explosives.

_Plus_, Alice reminded herself, _they've got the Italian resistance waiting in the wings with more explosives, and Otto managed to slip more weapons to the British POWs so they'll have support on the inside._

Steve pointed to the elevated area on the map where Bucky would search for a good sniper's nest, and as a result leaned in a little closer to where Alice stood. His arm nudged against hers.

Bucky took over, explaining where his range of cover would lie, and almost unconsciously Alice pressed her shoulder against Steve's. As if they'd prearranged it, they both reached for each other's hands behind their backs. Steve's fingers laced into Alice's, and she squeezed his hand. _Hi. _

Steve's lips quirked as he looked down at the map, following Bucky's explanation.

They weren't really intending to hide anything, but Alice and Steve both knew that there was no time for romance or heartfelt catch-ups tonight.

A moment later they had to release each other's hands when Steve ducked down to triple-check their heading on the compass.

Peggy turned to Alice and Otto as the 107th Tactical Team arranged their final plans. "I'm staying with the boat," she told them, and Alice had to repress a smile at how grumpy she seemed at this arrangement. "You told us you would arrange your own extraction, is that all to plan?"

Alice nodded. "We've got a short walk up north, then we're traveling back to Florence in a truck with our lookouts. We'll be back at our hotel before dawn."

Dugan, who'd overheard this, laughed. "Sounds alright, I could do with a good long sleep in a hotel room!"

"Want to swap?" Alice challenged with a quirk of her lips, and he seemed to reconsider.

"I think I'll take my bedroll and tent, actually."

Steve picked up his compass, handed Morita's map back, and dusted the sand off his gauntlets. "Alright, we're all set. Let's clear out."

"Not without a goodbye!" Bucky insisted, even as he broke the circle to come over and sweep Alice into his arms. She laughed and hugged him back, feeling the edge of something like desperation creeping into her heart. She didn't think she could take many more of these warzone farewells.

They pulled apart and Alice said a swift goodbye to each of Steve's men, being sure to kiss every single one of them on the cheek just so she would get the excuse to do it to Steve too. They were simultaneously earnest and teasing, each of them tugging at her heartstrings.

When Alice came to Steve she felt rather than heard the other men snickering under their breath - no doubt expecting a repeat to Alice and Steve's last dramatic farewell. But she simply leaned up and pressed her lips to Steve's cheek, lingering just a fraction longer and pressing just a little closer, her palm on his other cheek. She heard his breath leave him.

Then they too pulled apart. "You be safe," she said, heart thundering. She could not bring herself to think of what he was about to walk into.

"Back at you," he replied, but his voice was too earnest for the joke to land. They stared at each other for a few more seconds.

Then Steve drew in a deep breath, as if steeling himself, and tore his eyes away to look at his men. "Let's head up."

Within the space of twenty seconds they'd vanished into the night, leaving nothing but their footprints on the sand. Alice, Otto, Peggy, and the two ship pilots were left behind in the silence.

After a few moments Peggy spoke. "I understand now."

Alice looked away from the point where Steve and Bucky had disappeared into the darkness. "Pardon?"

Peggy smiled a little sadly, then nodded in the direction Steve had left. "Oh, let's not… I don't want this to be some unspoken discomfort." She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. "I understand what it is now, with you two. I didn't at first, I'll admit, when I first found out, but seeing you together makes sense."

Alice felt a brief flare of embarrassment. _Did she see us holding hands? _But there was also relief soothing the embarrassment, that she'd brought it up. She hadn't quite been able to get Steve's '_there might've been something with Peggy_' out of her mind; less out of jealousy and more out of fear that it would mean something would change between her and Peggy. But she found nothing but genuine care in her friend's eyes. She opened her mouth, not quite sure what to say.

Otto stood a few paces away, and though he seemed to be interestedly paying attention to the ship's pilots' conversation Alice knew he was eavesdropping. It was just his way.

She settled on: "Steve's always made sense to me."

"I can see that." Peggy nodded seriously, as if they were still discussing battle plans. "You seem to understand each other quite well. Well, you have known each other for years."

"It didn't take me years to understand him," Alice said reflectively. Then, thinking that might have been rude somehow, she eyed Peggy more directly. "I mean to say, Steve is…" everything that Steve _was _overwhelmed her. "He and I… I just mean-"

Peggy arched an eyebrow. "My my. I've often wondered what it would take to bring you to speechlessness. Now I know." Alice huffed a laugh, and Peggy smiled. "I understand, Alice."

They subsided into silence, side by side with the dark water behind them as they breathed in the night air.

"We had best be going," Otto eventually said.

"There's no other intel you'd rather I hear alone?" Peggy asked.

Alice blinked. They hadn't considered not trusting any of the intel with Steve and his men.

"No, that covers it," Otto confirmed.

Peggy didn't seem surprised. "Alright then. Until next time. Be safe, and be smart."

"Always," Alice smiled.

She and Otto each hugged Peggy, then set off into the night.

* * *

Later, as they climbed into the truck which would transport them back to Florence, they heard the sound of explosions in the distance.

"_Spero che dia loro l'inferno!_" [_I hope they give them hell_!] cried one of their lookouts, a member of the Italian Resistance.

Alice smiled, suppressing her fear. "_Lo faranno._" [_They will_.]

* * *

Facebook Post dated 12 April 2011, on page _Battle Tactics of History_:

_Day 12 of Analyzing Howling Commandos tactical campaigns: The Victory at Altassina._

_Before dawn on a chilly April night and Tuscany, Captain America and the Howling Commandos descended on a HYDRA-occupied resort town. This was one of their first major offensives against HYDRA in Italy and their massive success marked the beginning of a devastating campaign that swept across Europe. They achieved a tactical success and a morale-crumbling blow against HYDRA._

_Strategy notes: In another brilliant move by master tactician Captain Rogers, the Commandos bolstered their smaller numbers through lightning-fast, targeted strikes backed by a brief airforce strike on the HYDRA forces, and also supplied arms not only to the POWs trapped within but also to the local Resistance. The Howling Commandos' alliance with the resistance here is a tactic which comes up again throughout their military campaign and without which, they might never have been as successful as they were._

* * *

The next day, word rippled throughout Italy that Captain America and his _Invaders _had pulled off a dazzlingly bold strike against HYDRA. Alice and Otto waited with bated breath to hear the full news and let out sighs of relief when it finally came: the 107th Tactical Team had gotten out with minimal injuries, with all the POWs in tow, and HYDRA's stranglehold on the small resort town had been smashed.

Alice and Otto joined the German generals in their satisfaction at the blow against HYDRA, and feigned commiseration at the generals' concern that Captain America had managed to penetrate so far beyond the front lines.

Meanwhile, they turned their sights to their final goals: gathering surveillance on the HYDRA warehouse near Genoa, and hunting for the main factory. They pulled off a few risky stunts in the process: Otto "discovered" the singing talents of one of the young secretaries in the Italian Wehrmacht Intelligence office, and began coaxing HYDRA intelligence out of her during recording sessions at a studio in Milan. "I might have to actually sign her for a record," he confided in Alice one evening, disgruntled. "Let's hope there's a market for overconfident and slightly off-key records."

Alice got a tip that one _Luftwaffe _commander had worked closely with HYDRA before their break from the Nazi forces, so she arranged a "research meeting" in the man's office. They sipped Dolcetto wine and Alice asked about various airplane and _Luftwaffe _terms for an 'upcoming song'. When the laxative she'd dropped in his drink kicked in and he hurriedly excused himself, Alice broke into his filing cabinet and snooped through his archived notes, her movements disguised by the loud classical music pealing from the phonograph.

All this new intelligence was passed on to Steve's team and the SSR through the new communication route that Alice and Otto had devised:

A song.

One song which had made its way onto the Siren's regular setlist was _Lili Marleen _\- originally recorded by a German singer who matched Alice for fame, it had recently become controversial because Marlene Dietrich, German-born but fervently American in ideals, had re-recorded it as American musical propaganda. Goebbels had briefly banned the song, but had been forced to allow it back on the airwaves because since 1941 the song had been wildly popular regardless of which army you fought for. It had the benefit of being sung by soulful, melancholic singers, its lyrics spoke to the heartache and nostalgia of the war, and it was also very catchy.

Alice had been singing it for a while now, and had taken to switching up the lyrics occasionally, as she did in her other songs, mostly to keep herself from being bored stiff.

She'd been singing one of her adapted versions, while contemplating the issue of communicating with an ever-moving team of guerilla soldiers behind enemy lines, when inspiration struck.

When she took the stage for the first time since the attack on the Tuscany HYDRA town, her hair shifting in the spring breeze, she sang not with her audience in mind, but the microphone which she knew would capture her voice and send it out on radio waves across the country.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Lili Marleen: Love anthem of a world war'_ by Christine Henderson

_First a poem written in 1915, 'Lili Marleen' became one of the most popular songs during World War II: the story of a soldier at war missing his beloved and invigorated by the memory of her. Its popularity began in 1941, when Radio Belgrade (the German soldiers' radio station in Belgrade) began playing Lale Andersen's recording of the song, and soon it crossed the lines of the war and became a favorite of Allied soldiers. _

_Scottish Major-General Fitzroy Maclean wrote of hearing the song in the spring of 1942: "Husky, sensuous, nostalgic, sugar-sweet, her voice seemed to reach out to you, as she lingered over the catchy tune, the sickly sentimental words."_

_Singers on both sides of the war performed the piece, from Vera Lynn to the Siren to Marlene Dietrich._

_Marlene Dietrich's performance of the tune for the OSS Muzak Project (musical propaganda) became a smash hit. She sang it in German and English, but in a film later in her life her character described the German lyrics as 'much sadder' than the English._

* * *

In a camp just south of the Winter Line, Steve and his team tuned in to the public German radio station on Gabe's field radio. For a moment, nothing but staticky silence met them.

But then, like a star coming out from behind dark clouds, Alice's voice pealed out from the radio. Clear, high and sweet, her voice crested an octave before plunging to a chilling depth.

It affected each of the men: they straightened, leaned forward in their seats, let out a breath. Steve didn't move a muscle. It had only been two weeks since that beach in Tuscany, but that had felt like a fleeting moment. Hearing her now, he recalled the feeling of her cold fingers linked with his, her lips pressed against his cheek.

He drew in a breath and focused. The sound was surprisingly clear, despite the distance, and after a moment Steve recognized the song as one of Alice's originals from before the war. They'd tuned in a few minutes early, just in case.

For a few minutes Steve and his men listened in silence to the German songs. Each of them had notepaper on their laps. They'd camped a few miles away from the main Allied camp tonight for privacy, so it was just them, the radio, and the open night sky above them.

Then she came to the song _Erika_ and they all straightened once more: _Lili Marleen _was next on the setlist. They heard, faintly, Alice's audience singing along and stamping their feet in time.

In no time at all _Erika _came to an end, and the nostalgic accordion melody of _Lili Marlene _struck up. Each of Steve's men went rigid and seemed to hardly breathe, so intent were they on the music. And then, with the hint of a smile in her voice, Alice began to sing.

The next three minutes were a flurry of utterly silent note scribbling in the campsite, every ear strained to pick out the crooned German words and each eye focused on a sheet of paper.

When Alice lilted out the final "_Wie einst, Lili Marleen?" _[_As before, Lili Marleen_?], the men let out a collective sigh.

"Alright," Steve said in the staticky space between songs, "Let's work it through. Line 1?"

Bucky nodded and tapped his sheet. "The line is meant to be _Vor der Kaserne, Vor dem grossen Tor,_" [_In front of the barracks, in front of the big gate_] he read, "But she changed _grossen _[_big_] to _hoch _[_tall_] which means" - he tapped his sheet - "that the Wehrmacht troops in area C - around the HYDRA warehouse we're monitoring - don't have any major offensive plans this week."

Steve checked the intricate sheet. "Good. Alright, next?"

They worked through the rest of the lines, some of which had no changes, indicating no intel in that "area", but others had them raising their eyebrows. It wasn't simply changes of words - Alice had included vocalisations like _oh _and humming to her intricate code, usually used to indicate numbers (she'd sung _oh _four times in this performance of the song, which indicated the day of the week they were to receive a package or briefing - Thursday).

And as for the location of the dead drop…

"In the fourth verse, fourth line," Monty noted, "she sang _Dein verliebtes Herz _[_Your heart in love_] instead of _verliebter Mund _[_mouth in love_], that means additional intelligence is at location _Z_, which for this week is… Dernier?"

The Frenchman checked his sheet and read, in slow English: "The dead drop in Campobasso."

Steve made a note: _Thursday, Campobasso. _He'd send one of his team or an ally.

"And the code sheet for the next performance?"

Morita cleared his throat. "_Wenn sich die späten Nebel dreh'n _[_When the late fog turns_] was sung twice…" holding up a table, he indicated the second row. "And in the last line she sang _Wie einst, Lili Marleen _[_As before, Lili Marleen_] instead of _Mit dir _[_With you_], which is" - he drew his finger across to the column marked _Wie einst, _and eyed the letter the clues had brought him to. "Code sheet F."

After some rustling Gabe brought out code sheet F, which held entirely different meanings for all the possible combinations of the song. "So this is for next week's performance."

Steve set down his notepaper. "Well done, everyone. I think this'll work."

"It sure does work," Dugan said, half-smiling. "But the congratulations don't belong to us, Cap. We ain't the ones who came up with all this."

Codes and tables flew from Steve's mind and the sound of the radio crackled back across his consciousness. Alice's heartbreakingly familiar voice, dancing along a more technically difficult song that made his throat close up.

He closed his eyes and knew that she was singing for him. A patently selfish thought, but he _knew _it was true - wherever she was, whatever she was looking at, Alice was singing and thinking of him. It made his heart ache.

It felt as if he'd spent half his life listening to Alice on the radio.

Bucky clapped him on the shoulder, easing him out of his reverie. "I should've learned German like she told me to for all those years," he said wryly. The other men chuckled.

Steve smiled. He felt as if Alice's voice were wrapped so closely around him that he might be able to reach out and touch her. "She's singing about victory."

* * *

Excerpt from '_Musical Cryptography_' by Allen Herwitz (2014), p. 12

_... music is all about encoded meanings and messages, on varying levels of complexity and secrecy. Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich used the bare bones of musical notes (A-G) to spell out parts of his name in his works, as a hidden resistance against the Soviet authorities who persecuted him his whole life. Pop singer Katy Perry once teased an album via morse code on the Capitol Records building in Hollywood. Mathematicians and cryptologists throughout history such as Philip Thicknesse have posited that musical cryptography is the best way to transmit secret messages, as no potential spy-catcher could suspect music. _

_Whatever the purpose, be it just a cheeky desire to sneak their name into a song or as a deeper resistance against larger forces, the fact remains that musicians throughout history have disguised meanings within their compositions and lyrics, and it is the job of music historians to uncover those meanings._

* * *

March, 1944

For over a month, Alice toured around Italy as Steve and his team battled their way through it, and almost every night she sang to them.

It was an extended mission of tracking and relaying information about HYDRA. Alice and Otto partied with the German higher ups each night to learn about their search for the rogue science division, ran their network of spies, informers and couriers, and did their fair share of breaking and entering, all in the hunt of information. Otto discovered a network of street kids who'd been causing nuisance for the Gestapo and put them to work finding and ferrying information.

Alice found it strange turning music into an encoded message, but felt startled at how easily it came to her. She twisted words and lines to signify times, locations, and troop movements, and the notes rang true.

Her changes did not always go unnoticed.

One evening, a junior Nazi officer came up to her at the routine party after her performance to the troops. He had dark hair which he'd slicked down to look like the _Führer_'s, and a studious air.

"Why did you not sing the song right?" he said after offering her a bow.

Alice laughed. "I beg your pardon, did you not like my singing?"

"Oh no, you have a lovely voice," he reassured her. "The voice of angels!" She smiled as he went on to compliment her. "But there was a mistake with the lyrics: _beautiful _walk, not _lovely _walk, and a few of the final lines were in the wrong order."

Alice smiled. "I see you've exposed me! I have so many songs to remember, most of them about love, that sometimes the small details escape me. And sometimes I do admit to taking a little artistic license."

The young officer laughed along with her, what little suspicion he had abating, thinking her a dim songstress who couldn't remember simple lyrics.

Later that evening, Alice heard from one of her "friends" in the _Kriegsmarine _that the young, attentive officer was in charge of troop supply for the entire north west of Italy. So she happened to bump into him again once he was a few glasses of port in, and amped up the stupid.

She sensed Otto watching her out of the corner of his eye - she was dedicating an awful lot of time to a man he thought was a relatively small fish at this party - but he trusted her. He turned his attention back to his focus for the evening.

"I'm thinking of extending my tour up to Lombardy and Piedmont," Alice told the young officer. "Can you recommend any good spots?"

That got the ball rolling. The young man told Alice all the hotspots of activity in the northwest, the largest concentrations of soldiers, and the "dangerous spots you ought to avoid". Alice figured that these spots were either the Allies fighting back, or HYDRA.

Alice returned to the same stage for another performance the next day, and when she saw the officer afterwards she said lightheartedly: "I sang hair of _ebony_, did you hear me? I was thinking about your lovely black hair!"

The officer blushed to the roots of his dark slicked hair and stammered something polite. But _ebony _really meant _drop zone E_, where a short missive about her gathered intel was waiting, having been dropped off in the middle of a wad of newspapers by a butcher.

As the weeks went on, Alice expanded her code out to her other songs to add variety, and then turned the order of songs on her setlist into a cipher. She performed at least once every two nights, which provided a consistent and reliable way to get information to Steve and the SSR.

Captain America and his Invaders seemed to strike faster and more unpredictably than ever, making the Nazis and HYDRA reel. Soon the HYDRA warehouse fell, and HYDRA's troops fled west to safety. Alice and Otto's network worked to disrupt their supply lines and escape routes, as well as damaging morale of the wider German army.

Sometimes Alice felt as if she were singing codes into an empty void. But then she'd hear of the latest Captain America strike behind enemy lines, or she'd receive a rare scrawled note requesting intelligence about a particular area, and felt as if she were standing in a shaft of warm sunlight.

Every note, no matter how short or direct, ended the same.

_\- Ulysses_

* * *

_**~ Songs are for beauty, not for lies. ~** _

* * *

April, 1944

Steve and his team were called away on urgent business to attack a HYDRA base in the Danish straits. Alice was frustrated to hear that they were leaving just as the pincers were closing on HYDRA, but she knew they'd return soon. And they'd chased HYDRA all the way up to the north of the country. All that was left was to finally scour out the location of the main factory, which Alice and Otto knew from Steve's description of the Austrian map to be somewhere in the northeast, near Milan.

Four days after the 107th Tactical Team left, one of Alice's bike couriers found the factory. He described what he'd thought was a rather large redbrick barn, which he'd almost cycled right past until he'd spotted a man in a bizarre looking uniform smoking outside it.

Over the course of the next few days Alice sent various spies through the area disguised as beggars, tourists, and farmers. Each of them came back with descriptions of metallic uniforms with what looked like glowing blue boxes on the back, fences that crackled ominously, and once even a brief glimpse of a tired straggle of prisoners.

"We found them," Alice said, when the last report came back. She drew a red circle around the coordinates on the map - unnecessary, but it soothed the glittering sense of victory in her stomach.

"We did," Otto confirmed with a rare grin. "Now we just have to pave the way."

* * *

The 107th Tactical Team weren't able to act immediately on the intelligence - they had the mess in the Danish straits to clear up, and then rumors of a high-tech submarine terrorizing the Mediterranean.

Alice and Otto collected and finalized all their intelligence, but it soon became clear that their mission in Italy (and Alice's much-extended singing tour) had come to a close.

And Alice had been working on a side project for Peggy for months.

One Sunday, after delivering a meticulous set of detailed notes on the HYDRA factory to a dead drop, Alice returned to her hotel room and penned a letter.

_Dear Vera, _she wrote. _I hear the beaches in France are lovely this time of year._

She signed her name, sealed the letter in an envelope and had the hotel concierge come collect it for the evening post.

She gazed out the window at the orange setting sun and set her chin in her hand. HYDRA was soon to be squashed in Italy, but the rest of the war was going poorly. The Allies were slowly chipping away at the massive Winter Line, but the end was far from sight.

Alice had turned twenty one at the opening of the war. She was twenty five now. She'd stepped into adulthood as the world had fallen into an explosion of violence, and as she reflected on her life she found it hard to not measure everything by _war_. Even in Brooklyn, trouble had been brewing. In Vienna, the violence had begun before she'd even arrived. She wondered who she'd be now, without the war.

But a moment later she realized it didn't matter. Because the war had forged her into the Alice Moser whose reflection gazed back at her from the glass, and this Alice Moser would see this war to its end even if she had to drag herself by her fingernails.

And at the end of it, if she were very lucky, there'd be a dock in Brooklyn with Tom waiting for her, and Steve and Bucky by her side.

_Until then_. Her thoughts turned to her next mission, her next prey to hunt through countries and battlefields. _Here I come._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The info on Lili Marlene is pretty much straight out of wikipedia, and those quotes are real - go check out the song! I recommend both the Marlene Dietrich versions, and Lale Andersen's recordings.
> 
> The info about musical cryptology comes from BBC Music's article "7 secret codes and ciphers hidden in music" and Atlas Obscura's article "With Musical Cryptography, Composers Can Hide Messages in Their Melodies". I... did not understand most of their contents.


	44. Chapter Thirty Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an 'article'-heavy chapter. Sue me, I like history.

April, 1944

The Siren returned to France with a great deal of fanfare. She'd toured back through the major Austrian and German cities on the way (checking in on her old network in Vienna, which Hugo and Vano ran with steady hands), but she'd cemented herself as a champion of the troops, and so with the troops she belonged.

With Otto by her side, Alice looked out the train window at the war-ravaged countryside as they travelled into France. _Panzer _tracks and bomb craters had torn the very earth of France apart, the people were bone-thin and hard-faced, and when they arrived in Paris Alice could barely walk ten steps without seeing an armed Gestapo or army officer.

On their first evening in Paris Alice and Otto attended a social dinner with many of the top-tier German officers, and on their second day they got to work.

Alice rekindled all her old connections, beginning with the OCM. She met with Vera Izard, who she hadn't seen since that night Alice had begun the first leg of her journey across the Atlantic to New York. They'd kept in contact since then, always working, but hadn't seen each other in the flesh. They shook hands briskly and then sat down to discuss their plans.

Alice found it easier to settle in to France. She'd spent a lot of time here before, she spoke the language fluently, and she knew people. In her periodic absences, the quietly furious resistance she'd known in 1940 had grown to a scale she could have never imagined, and she threw herself back into it with fervor. That said, she found herself missing the familiar routine of Italy. Everything had changed, once again.

Something was coming. Alice wasn't entirely sure what, and Peggy was ever-careful to keep specifics from her, but she knew it must be something massive. She couldn't see the whole picture but she sensed forces moving, causing ripples from behind the darkness. Alice redirected those ripples, disguised them, obfuscating German intelligence and feeding them lies. Meanwhile, massive bombing campaigns strafed across the continent.

Resistance efforts in France were swelling and preparing, assisted by the British SOE and now, by Alice and Otto's inter-connected network. A large part of the _Résistance _had been pushed out of the cities and now congregated in militarized groups in the French mountainside; they called themselves the _Maquis. _

Alice and Otto were well-practiced in supplying and supporting resistance groups, so they quickly got to work aiding the guerilla fighters. The British SOE had a system of airdrops set up for the _Maquis,_ so Alice and Otto aided this with truckloads of weapons, food, and money, supported by the sympathetic locals. These groups weren't just ragtag civilians, though - many of the major groups were run by senior military commanders, agents, and strategists who'd been parachuted into France in the dead of night. Alice found herself thinking that Steve would get along with them.

She also ran counterintelligence for the _Résistance_: monitoring her Nazi connections for hints of reprisals, intelligence, and firepower.

She went out as Al to meet with them sometimes, to pass on warnings or to hear what they'd learned while fighting and spying on the Nazi troops. She began to trace the whispers of soldiers in strange uniforms with glowing weapons. By early May she'd gained the trust of the major _Maquis _groups, as she had gained the trust of the quiet resistance in Paris at the start of the war, when all seemed hopeless.

This France wasn't the France she'd known in 1940, however. Alice began to see hope everywhere: in the blazing eyes of the _Maquisards_ and _Résistance_, in the _V_'s graffitied everywhere, too many to scrub away, in the lavender fields growing over bomb craters, and the way the German generals looked afraid when their men weren't watching.

* * *

One evening at the beginning of May, the Red Skull screeched to a halt outside of what had once been the main HYDRA factory in Italy. He took in the devastation: the foundations utterly shattered, debris strewn everywhere, all of it still roaring with flame.

His fists clenched on his steering wheel.

* * *

When word spread to Alice and Otto of the destruction of the Italian HYDRA factory, they actually danced together around Alice's hotel room in an impromptu jig. Months of hard, dangerous work, and it was done: HYDRA had been completely eradicated from an entire country.

When Alice fell laughing onto her couch, she set her hand on her chest and allowed herself to feel the glow of immense, inordinate pride for Steve and his men. She'd done the reconnaissance on that factory: it can't have been easy taking it down.

When they heard, days later, rumors of how Captain America had burst out the side of the exploding building on a motorcycle, her pride turned to unease and a little consternation, but there wasn't much she could do about it.

She wondered where the SSR would send them next.

* * *

Alice continued to facilitate communication and supplies for the _Maquis_, occasionally communicating directly (including, once, a memorably feisty telephone exchange with a female British SOE agent on the ground codenamed _White Mouse_).

Through Peggy and the SSR she also coordinated with the SOE, who supplied and managed a huge amount of the organised resistance in France, coordinating them in disrupting German supplies, and destroying various targets such as weapons depots, bridges, and railroad tracks. What all this was intended for, Alice could only guess. But it seemed as if the fight were only just beginning.

In amongst the endless travelling and rising violence, Alice took up knitting. She'd learned from Matthias years ago, and it was a way to quiet her mind between shows and after a harrowing night out as Al. It gave her time to think.

At the end of the month, Alice (as Al) arrived to a pre-arranged meet in a rubbish-strewn alleyway. She had a handful of things to discuss with Vera, mostly regarding upcoming reprisals planned against the resistance in Paris.

But when the meeting time came and went with no Vera, Alice's hackles instantly rose. The dark-haired, middle aged resistance leader was never late. She waited three more minutes and then scarpered.

When she returned to her hotel room, a sweaty-faced Otto was waiting for her.

"Thank goodness you're back," he breathed by way of greeting.

"What happened?" The look on his face made her blood run cold. Was this it? Was it time for them to run for their lives? They'd both known it was a possibility.

"I just got word from Pierre - Vera's been arrested. At her home, so it's possible they don't know where the OCM headquarters are, but they're all making themselves scarce just in case."

Alice bit down on the inside of her cheek. "And Vera?"

Otto spread his hands helplessly. "A boy on her street saw the arrest, said she was pushed into a dark car and driven away. You know we won't hear any more than that."

Alice sat down. She and Vera had never been friends, but they had been the strongest of allies. Without Vera, Alice might never have become the agent she was today. Alice thought of the other arrests she'd heard of - the telling silences that followed, or the publicized trials and executions. She thought again of the tales of labor camps where people wasted away - or were somehow vanished.

For a moment, suggestions rose to the tip of Alice's tongue: they could surveill the military prisons that had been set up throughout France, contact the Resistance and try to arrange a jailbreak - but she did not speak the words, because she already knew these were impossible, brave hopes. They had no way of knowing where Vera could be, or if she were even alive. And the _Résistance _were guerilla groups - they couldn't take on armies.

Vera had known, as Alice knew, that she could not expect rescue if she were captured. That was a spy's lot.

Alice recalled her conversation with Vera when they'd discussed first making contact with the SSR.

_Even if this ends up with me in some camp in the east starving to death_, Alice had said, _I'll want to know, even then, that I did everything I could. _

Vera had replied _I'll gladly join you in that camp then, Moser._

Alice wondered if she'd still make that choice. She suspected she would.

All Alice and Otto could do now was continue on in Vera's stead, and hope that she did not mention their names.

* * *

At the end of May, Alice felt that the forces shifting and rippling out of focus were growing closer. She'd been working round the clock reporting on German intelligence and expectations, and there'd been a heavy influx of bombing all across France - near daily along the coast.

A flurry of instructions had come from the British to the Resistance, via a radio channel that also put out hundreds of masking transmissions including poetry and literature excerpts. The instructions set out a series of tasks to undertake at the beginning of June: four plans, each given a different color code, aimed at sabotage of transport lines, power, supply lines and communication. The Resistance were all too eager to begin preparations.

In amongst these obscure preparations and near-daily Siren performances for German troops, Alice was invited to a wedding. It was the wedding of a Waffen-SS commander in Hitler's inner circle, an important figure in the Nazi elite. The wedding was to be held in Salzburg at the beginning of June. Highly inconvenient for Alice, but the Siren had no real reason to turn down such a prestigious invite.

Alice and Otto talked it over, and decided that she would attend but he would stay. Things were too crucial in France for them both to leave. Besides, it would be good cover for Alice when whatever was going to happen in France went down, and an excellent source of intelligence.

And so she found herself sitting in the grand marble hall of Mirabell Palace in Salzburg, far removed from the grim reality of war in France, watching a German officer marry a young, stylish socialite. It was not a small ceremony, and the very top of German society were present: the official witnesses were Hitler himself, Himmler, and Hitler's private secretary Martin Borhmann.

Alice fought not to shift uncomfortably in her seat at her company.

The wedding itself was a celebration of German might and pride, a massive display of grandeur and joy to show their confidence in victory.

The bridge and groom were wed, and they all journeyed to the reception: held at the Berghof, Hitler's grand home in the Bavarian alps. The whole area had been converted to a series of houses for the Nazi elite, and barracks for the Reich Security Service.

When Alice arrived, the chalet was packed with wedding guests. Alice was by no means the guest of honor, finding herself rather farther down on the social food chain here than she normally was, so she felt free to stare at the grand chalet with its expansive white walls, the caged canaries in each room, the resplendent attendants, and the sweeping windows offering a marvelous view of the Austrian mountains. The Great Hall of the house boasted a glittering chandelier, fine rugs and the famous _Venus and Amor _painting.

Alice felt her throat close up.

This house had been host to every general and official Alice despised, and had also welcomed, in its time, the British Prime Minister and half a dozen other heads of state. This was the place where two separate assassins had attempted to end the _Führer_'s life. This was Hitler's home.

She was not here to idly stare, however, so she spent her time in conversations, collecting every scrap of information she could. She sipped Hitler's wine and loudly admired Hitler's decorating and artworks, her skin crawling. She spoke very briefly with the man himself and his inner circle, two minutes that when she looked back at them felt like a red-hot, stomach-turning blur.

She was entreated to sing for the gathered guests, and after an insane moment of considering singing an Allied victory song, settled on _Lili Marleen. _Her way of spitting in their faces without them noticing.

Word got around that the partying was to go on for several days, but Alice knew that she had reached her limit. She was not invited to stay on for a second day, and was barely able to contain her relief.

She could not stand another day in this beautiful house with its greenhouse and artworks and smiling faces. She'd known that Hitler was a man like any other, but the proof of it was sickening. The man who enjoyed these home comforts was also responsible for wreaking utter devastation on a whole continent, a whole world, tearing Alice's life apart and killing Jilí and enabling HYDRA and every other despicable thing that had clawed its way into Alice's heart. She'd known all this, but seeing it laid bare before her eyes made her blood run cold.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Nazi Weddings_,' by Holly Speck (1993):

_When SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein married young Nazi Party photography clerk Gretl Braun, the Nazi Party saw the union as a way to celebrate the ongoing war, and to assert their confidence in the war's outcome. The wedding and following reception was lush, grand, with celebrations at Hitler's personal villa lasting three whole days. This would be the last time Hitler would spend time in his own house._

_The wedding was planned by Gretl's sister, and included multiple high-flying guests including Hitler himself, Himmler... chief of staff of the Gestapo Gottlob Berger... as well as several notable socialites and performers including the Siren... _

_Recovered pictures of the event show the young bride smiling and dancing at her reception, surrounded by high-ranking Nazi officials._

_Most believe that Fegelein courted the young Gretl in order to get himself into the Führer's good graces. He would later be shot for desertion at the end of the war, leaving Gretl alone and pregnant._

* * *

That evening, Alice drove herself to Venice and prepared her intelligence brief to send back to the SSR. She included every ounce of information she'd heard: a great deal of it about expectations of Allied planning in the ongoing war. There'd been some discussion of increased Allied radio activity, which they thought might be a sign of an invasion, but since there'd been a dozen other such false warnings (Alice prided herself on being behind at least one of those) most of the generals waved it off.

In the safety of Hitler's home, no one had seemed to pay much mind to secrecy. Though she suspected as the partying went on, their minds would be less on politics and more on booze and women.

As she went down the list of importance, she jotted down a passing observation from her many conversations at the reception: _It may be worth looking into a woman named Eva Braun - the bride's sister. Have never heard of her before in society, but she has a strange familiarity with key figures in Hitler's inner circle. Potentially a mistress of one of the Ministers._

* * *

Excerpt from '_The Secret Wife_' by Herman Carloff (1999), p. 12:

_... in fact, most of the German public did not find out about Eva Braun's existence, let alone her relationship with Hitler, until the shock news came at the end of the war that Hitler had married the young woman, 23 years his junior, and that they had committed suicide together in Hitler's bunker. As far as most historians are able to tell, this news also came as a surprise to Allied intelligence services such as the SOE and the SSR, who had noted her name a few times in connection with the German upper circles, but had no idea of her real significance._

* * *

The next day, after visiting with Hugo and Vano and other members of her Vienna network, Alice returned to her house to pack her bags for her return to France and happened to turn on the radio.

"_... and today, Allied forces marched into the open city of Rome. The traitorous Italians welcomed the enemy and Pope Pius XII addressed crowds outside the Vatican, praising 'goodwill on both sides'..."_

Crouching in front of her open suitcase, Alice held a folded jacket in her numb fingers. She pictured the Rome she'd known: paralyzed by war, trigger-happy Gestapo officers on every corner, the people afraid to leave their homes. She thought of how it must feel to have that pallor of fear lifted, and a smile crossed her face.

But the moment was bittersweet: she'd known this was coming, since the Allied commanders in Italy had chosen to veer north and take Rome instead of trapping the German Tenth Army. The Tenth Army had managed to escape, and formed another defensive line north of Rome; the radio presenter lauded this fact, citing Rome as an acceptable loss.

Alice wondered where Steve and his men were - her mission had diverged from theirs about a month ago, so she didn't hear much about them. She doubted they were enjoying the free streets of Rome.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_On This Day: The Liberation of Rome_' by Wendy Catalan (11 May 2004):

_Sixty years ago to this day, Allied soldiers marched into the streets of Rome, making the Italian city the first European capital to be liberated from Nazi hands. It was captured without any fighting, as the Germans had abandoned it and labeled it a "free city" - the Allies hoped that all the same this would draw more troops into Italy and out of France, and served as a massive propaganda tool. Tactically, however, the capture of the city was a mistake in the long run: by sacrificing hunting down the German troops in the area first, the war in Italy would stretch on until Berlin itself was seized in 1945._

* * *

June 5th, 1944

On a troop carrier ship in the Atlantic, Steve, Bucky and their men sat on deck playing cards against some soldiers from the 3rd Canadian Division.

"All I'm saying," Gabe said as he played a losing hand against a chortling Saskatchewan, "is that them calling off the landing today doesn't mean the whole thing is called off."

"Shit weather is just shit weather," said one of the Canadians, earning a round of knowing nods.

"But they've been going on about tides and times of day for months," said a soldier from the 107th, watching the card game. "If the day they picked didn't work, isn't that it?"

Gabe shook his head fervently even as he lost again. "_No, _like I said, we're still in the prime period for a landing: full moon for visibility, high tides for beach assaults. If they send us soon - really soon - we might pull it off."

Steve laid down his hand, not really concentrating on the game. They'd arrived on this ship three days ago, united once more with the 107th regiment, some of whom had been looking a little green around the gills on the storm-tossed ship. All they had to do was sit and wait for orders. It made Steve restless. The press stuff had made him more restless - he'd been photographed "planning" with General Eisenhower the other day, and there was a photography crew on deck who kept trying to catch Steve rousing his men's spirits.

This wasn't a HYDRA mission. This was a mission direct from Army command, for the greater war. Of course Steve had agreed; even from what little they told him he could tell that this would be one of the most pivotal moments of the war.

Morita frowned. "When's the next 'prime period' for a landing then, if we can't do it this time around?"

Gabe scratched his head. "Not for weeks."

A silence fell. They all knew that the higher-ups wouldn't keep dozens of fresh troops on a ship for weeks, waiting for the right tide. And if they were redeployed, who knew when they would be back?

Steve shuffled the deck. "Then let's just hope they make the right call."

* * *

Excerpt from podcast episode 'Operation Neptune' from series _Operation Overlord_, 2011:

_"See, I don't think people realize how much the D-Day landings in Normandy really depended on the weather: the commanders needed good visibility to see obstacles on the beach, while also minimizing the exposure of their men. And then on June 4th, the day before the planned invasion date of June 5th, which they'd been planning for for months, there was high wind and stormy weather which would have made the landings impossible. The Allied commanders were then faced with an enormous choice: did they go ahead with the mission soon, even though the plan had already come across these significant obstacles, or did they wait and bide their time until the next predicted window: from the 18th to 20th of June? This was one of the most secret operations of the war (thanks to Operation Bodyguard), and the whole plan relied on its secrecy - if they waited, they might be found out._

_Finally, the commanders made their decision: they would go ahead with the landings on June 6th, a postponement of just a day._

_And thus began what was then the largest amphibious assault of history. The Allies pulled out all the stops: 24,000 troops, an invasion fleet of nearly 7000 vessels from eight different navies, more than 2,200 bombers providing aerial assault, tanks and trucks and assault weapons. Even Captain America and the Howling Commandos were at one of the landings._

_The choice to land on the 6th would prove to be a fortuitous one. From June 19th to 22nd, the secondary attack window they'd selected, a massive storm raged along the Normandy coast. If they had not chosen to attack on the 6th, they might never have made it at all."_

* * *

June 6th, 1944

Alice took the overnight train up to Berlin, and spent the night alone in her cabin caught in fitful dreams of beautiful chalets and unseen momentous events on the horizon. Giving up on sleep just before dawn, she spent the last few hours of the trip knitting. She felt groggy and grumpy as she filed off the train in Berlin the next morning, so it took her a few moments to register the general sense of commotion.

When she finally looked up and noticed the gathered, whispered conversations and the huddles of people peering down at newspapers with hands over their mouths, her heart leaped.

_It's happened._

She hastened to the station exit, but couldn't bear not knowing a moment longer, so she tapped the ticket inspector on the shoulder. "Excuse me, what's going on?"

"The Allies just attacked the coast of France," he said with round eyes. "Hundreds of ships, all along Normandy! No one knows what's going on."

Alice turned her urge to grin into a gasp. "When?"

"Midnight last night! There's thousands of troops all along Normandy now."

Alice fabricated a hurried, concerned look, then strode out of the station and called a taxi. On the way to her apartment the taxi driver complained about how Berlin had been in uproar all morning, and all the higher-ups were clogging the streets with their private cars.

Alice nodded along, outwardly concerned. _I suspect my dinner with the Propaganda Department this evening is going to be canceled._

Finally they arrived. She hauled her own suitcase up the stairs to her apartment, unlocked the door and burst inside. The grin she'd been concealing burst across her face. She dropped her suitcase with a _thunk _and whirled around, giddy. _Please_, she thought. _Please, please, let this be the beginning of the end. _

Since 1939 she'd watched the German empire expand greedily outwards, seemingly relentless. But now the outwards momentum had stalled, and the tide was turning back.

Alice intended to sit right in the heart of it and watch the borders roll back in.

After about an hour, in which Alice did nothing but listen to unfolding reports of the massive attack on Normandy, she heard a knock at her door.

She opened it to reveal a tall blonde woman in a brown SS-Gefolge uniform. "Oh," Alice said, recognising the Propaganda Department's senior secretary. "Hello, Inge."

"Your doorman said you were back," the severe-looking woman said. "We tried to call, but the phone lines are too busy. Herr Miller conveys his regrets that he will have to cancel dinner this evening, and wishes to pass along this message." She stiffly handed over a piece of paper.

"Oh," Alice said again as she took the paper. "Well, I appreciate you coming across town to let me know."

"It's my duty," Inge responded. "Heil Hitler."

"Heil Hitler," Alice echoed softly, then returned Inge's salute. Inge flicked her eyes over Alice disdainfully, then turned and left.

Alice rolled her eyes as she closed the door, then opened the memo:

_Frau Siren,  
Apologies for the urgency, but we kindly request that you return to your posting in France as soon as possible. Have no fear for your safety, we have arranged all the necessary measures for your travel. Field Marshal Rundstedt assures us that the Allies have been held off from progressing too far inland, so France remains ours. The troops will need bolstering now more than ever.  
Herr Klein will be waiting for you in Lyon.  
Heil Hitler._

Alice eyed the transport details typed on the back of the memo, grabbed her suitcase, and marched right back out the door.

* * *

When she arrived in Lyon the next day, Otto stood at the train station waiting for her. The moment they spotted each other they embraced, excitement dancing between them.

"Come," Otto murmured, "there's work to be done."

In the back of the private car on the way to the hotel, Otto handed her a piece of crumpled paper. "They've been airdropping these all over France, one of our couriers brought me this one."

Alice glanced down. The flyer was written in French, proclaiming _FREEDOM IS ON THE WAY. _A little heavy handed, but Alice had to admit it was effective, especially given the photographs. The whole front of the flyer was taken up by a photograph of various soldiers looking heroic as they charged up a beach, accompanied by armored vehicles. At the bottom corner was a picture of a group of soldiers holding a captured Nazi flag.

"Turn it over," Otto suggested.

She did, and her heart nearly dropped into her stomach when she recognized none other than Steve. Well, she couldn't really see his face but Captain America was utterly distinctive: even in black and white he looked vivid with the clean white star on his chest and the striped shield on his arm. He was pictured charging up the beach, shield raised, and despite the grainy picture quality Alice could see the rest of his team charging up behind him.

"They were there," she breathed.

"They're _here_," Otto responded. "Breathing French air like the rest of us."

"I thought the Germans were holding them off?"

Otto grimaced. "Things didn't go exactly to plan, but the Allies have a foothold. They've landed on five separate beaches, which they _meant _to link up, but they haven't quite managed it yet. The Germans are scrambling, though. And the _Résistance _are on their sabotage warpath. We did our job well."

Alice leaned across the back seat to loop her arm around Otto and squeeze. "It's not over yet," she said softly.

"No," he agreed. "You've got a bit more singing to do."

* * *

Display at the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, 2014:

_Image Gallery: Captain America and D-Day_

_As you walk through this gallery of photographs from the 107th Tactical Team's deployment in Normandy, consider the following: some historians have questioned whether Captain America's deployment in Operation Overlord was a purely political decision. Several photographs survive of Captain Rogers conversing with Allied command, and leading troops up the beach, which would have been an excellent propaganda tool for the Allies, who saw Operation Overlord as the beginning of the push back into Nazi territory. Or is it possible that Allied command wanted to add the extra muscle of their single super soldier to what was their boldest and riskiest move of the war? With the first weeks of the landings having an uncertain, dangerous future, there is no doubt that Captain Rogers was on the ground every day with his team, engaged in some of the hardest and most frustrating fighting of the war._

* * *

Four days after the invasion of Normandy, Alice and Otto were visiting with a _Résistance _group outside Bordeaux when word came through that a _Waffen-SS _company had massacred a whole village in Haute-Vienne: hundreds of men, women, and children shot or burned alive in a church. They'd said it was a response to _Résistance _action.

Alice closed her eyes as the _Résistants _around them flew into uproar, their anger and grief a physical force in the air. She thought of Lidice, whose occupants had been massacred two years ago, and the countless other mass acts of senseless violence. She'd thought they were close to ending it.

Otto's hand landed on her shoulder. "The world won't forget this," he said in a low tone.

Alice opened her eyes. "Remembering isn't enough. This has to _end_."

* * *

Display at Oradour-sur-Glane Memorial Museum:

_On June 10 1994, a unit of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich descended on the small town of Ouradour-sur-Glane. They rounded up the 650 inhabitants, divided them by gender, and then proceeded to massacre them all: burned alive, suffocated, shot. Only seven survived, with life-threatening injuries. _

_The reason for this massacre was never clear. In the days following, the officer in charge ordered his men not to speak of the killings. But public outrage grew throughout France, and unusually, the German Army Commander-In-Chief ordered an investigation of the massacre, which was suspended in January of the next year under the explanation that "military concerns justified the retaliation". The officer in charge was killed shortly after the massacre in the fighting at Normandy. It is likely that the massacre was, at the time, a way of 'making an example' of a French community following the D-Day landings._

_Following the war the French Government ordered the village left as a reminder of the violence, never to be rebuilt. To this day it remains as a memorial to the dead._

_Several men have faced trial for the massacre at different points throughout time, with some of them being convicted. 20 served prison sentences for five years, one for fourteen years. Most died free of conviction._

* * *

"If I never smell a fresh sea breeze again, it'll be too soon."

The 107th Tactical Team chortled at Dugan's latest complaint, watching him scowling over his shoulder at the distantly-visible Normandy shoreline.

Two weeks had passed since they'd stormed the Normandy beaches, one part of the massive Operation Neptune action. They'd been fighting alongside the rest of the Allies, hard fighting to link up the 5 beaches and now push down through the hedgerow-crisscrossed country inland. Planes buzzed back and forth across the sky at any given moment, some of them Allied planes on the way to blast open paths for the soldiers and some of them _Luftwaffe _roaring in to blow them all to smithereens.

Steve and his team had also been skirmishing beyond the lines of fighting, since it turned out there were also HYDRA forces on the ground in Normandy. Everyone accepted that the 107th Tactical team were the experts in taking down HYDRA and their strange weapons, so they got deployed regularly. The fighting was yet to break out of the small pocket of Normandy they'd won so far, though, so they couldn't expand much beyond that.

They'd spent the last two nights in this camp in a small town called Caumont, which had been mostly evacuated of civilians, though the further south they pushed the more civilians they encountered. Steve and his team now sat around Gabe's radio, most of them half-stripped out of their filthy uniforms and partaking in a cigarette or a canteen of liquor. They'd been joking and trading guesses about the progress of the Normandy invasion, but as the time ticked closer to 8PM they grew less talkative, more alert.

The SSR had been getting regular updates from Alice through their various spies within France, so Steve had expected to receive intelligence through that reliable, yet slow, method. He hadn't seen her since the beach in Tuscany, though they'd been trading correspondence of a sort up until she left for France.

But last week, after the beachheads had been linked, a young girl in boots five sizes too big for her had approached Steve and his team in the middle of a bombed-out-town. Civilians were supposed to have been evacuated, but those who'd remained for whatever reason were always coming up to the Allied troops to celebrate or talk.

The young girl in question had strode right up to Steve and handed him a woolen bundle. "_J'ai un cadeau pour toi!_" [_I've got a present for you_!]

Steve took the bundle and realized it was a dark blue scarf, thick and warm under his fingers. "_M-Merci_," he stammered, touched and startled out of the strategic mindset he'd been in. His men laughed at his embarrassment, and the girl smiled.

"_Tu peux écrire ton nom sur l'étiquette pour savoir que c'est la tienne__,_" [_You can write your name on the tag so you know it's yours_] she suggested, and something about her gaze made Steve hesitate a moment. It seemed an odd thing to say, and paired with that _look _in her eyes...

Even as his men continued to tease him, Steve had glanced down at the bundled scarf in his hands and spotted a fabric tag in one corner. He turned it over, expecting a maker's mark, but there was only an embroidered black and electric blue butterfly.

He glanced up, eyes wide, but the girl had already left; he saw her back as she turned behind a bombed-out building and considered following her, but decided against it. He glanced back down.

"What was all that about?" asked Bucky. The teasing note in his voice had been replaced by a frown.

Steve still stared at the tag. "Buck… this is a Ulysses butterfly."

Bucky stilled. "What?"

Steve shook the scarf loose, expecting a piece of paper to fall out, but the folds were empty. He frowned. The dark blue scarf was good quality, thick and textured, but he could see that it was handmade. He recalled Alice teaching him how to knit one winter, showing him what she'd learned from Matthias.

"Alice sent you… a scarf?" Bucky had wondered. The others had stopped laughing and crowded around, watching as Steve handled the scarf. "It ain't even your birthday. And you hardly ever get cold nowadays."

"Wait." Steve had spotted something. What he'd thought was textured ribbing in the knitting had snagged his attention. He held up one end of the scarf so the fringe tassels at the other end brushed the ground, and peered closer. He ran a finger over the first row of the knitting, noting the tiny irregularities, and a sudden smile lit up his face.

"My god," he breathed. He ran the scarf through his fingers, eyes darting, then turned it over and his smile widened.

"What is it?" Bucky frowned.

"It's Morse code," Steve laughed, pointing out what he'd noticed. Each row of the knitting bore the marks of written morse code: tiny dots and dashes built into the pattern. Bucky's eyes flew wide and his men let out surprised laughs even as they leaned in. Steve shook his head. "Does anyone have a pen?"

So with the instructions from his new scarf, Steve and his men had deciphered a familiar and yet completely revised code: Alice had sent them another cheat sheet for her Siren performances.

At 8PM Gabe's radio crackled, faded in and out a little, and then began to ring out with Alice's voice.

Smiling, Steve touched the dark blue scarf around his neck (Bucky kept telling him not to wear it, it was _June _for chrissakes), picked up his pencil and began to make notes.

* * *

Oral History interview with Michael Holloway, former 29th Infantry Division private, recorded 1982:

_The Howling Commandos - not that they called themselves that at the time - bonded better than any other team I'd seen out there. Sure, we were all mates - war does that - but those fellas were close. They got on well with most everyone, though some of them rubbed a few people the wrong way, but they also kept themselves to themselves from time to time. They sure liked listening to the radio._

* * *

When Alice heard that the HYDRA bunker east of Caen that she and Otto had discovered a week ago had been completely demolished by Captain America, she patted her traveling case of wool and knitting needles with satisfaction. She'd picked up the idea from her network in Vienna, who'd been transporting packages disguised under skeins of wool.

Since then she'd become an avid knitter: she'd posted scarves and socks and woolen hats all over Europe, handed out scarves and gloves to children in the towns she visited. The work was time consuming, so she didn't do it for urgent messages, but she'd gotten pretty good. She worked quickly, and she'd figured out how to make the dots and dashes very small.

She took to her next performance with a little more enthusiasm. She sang loud and bright to a crowd of weary German soldiers and when they rose to applaud her at the end she called "_Danke fürs Zuhören! Gut gemacht!_" [_Thank you for listening! Well done!_]

Perhaps a little nonsensical, but she felt certain that the intended audience understood.

* * *

Late June, 1944

During a week's break in the Siren's performances, Alice and Otto traveled to the south of France on the request of a _Maquis _group there. They took a private car down from Paris, away from the frantic fighting in the country's north, under the pretense of discussing some business with a music producer in Toulouse. The Allies chipped away a little more territory each day, but they hadn't broken out of the small pocket in Normandy yet.

The rest of the country had their eyes on the north - everywhere Alice and Otto stopped, they were asked what they had seen, what they knew. Once or twice, they had to divert their route because the roads had been destroyed by bombardment or by rebels.

They stopped - officially - in Toulouse, but as soon as it was dark they changed into disguises and took another car further south, all the way down to the Pyrénées mountains. There, on a dirt road looking out over a plunging waterfall, they met the _Maquisards _who'd invited them.

The collection of men dressed in a variety of clothes from old French Army uniforms to overalls, with an equally bizarre assortment of weapons strapped to their backs. The men urged Alice and Otto to hide their car, then walked with them up a winding rocky road.

"You know why we called you," said Audric, the leader of the group. He wore a metal helmet and a grim expression. "The fools have holed themselves up in a cave up here, and don't speak a lick of French. We keep trying to tell them we mean them no harm, but they won't trust anyone."

"They are scared," said a younger man whose name Alice didn't know. He shrugged at them when they all turned to look at him. "Can you blame them?"

Alice pondered this as they kept walking up the steep road. "And you're certain they said _HYDRA_?"

"Yes!" said Audric impatiently. "They think _we _are HYDRA. I don't speak much English so I couldn't understand what else they said. But then they started shooting those blue weapons at us, and I understood _that_ well enough."

"We appreciate you reaching out to the _Résistance _to let us know," Otto said, wheezing a little as he put one foot in front of the other.

"They're a nuisance!" Audric continued. "We are trying to do our part, blow up Nazi trucks and such, but these fools on our home turf are making it difficult!" Alice couldn't help but smile at this, despite the gravity of the situation. Then Audric came to a sudden halt, and Alice almost ran into his back. The _Maquisards _paused all around them, hands on their hips and eyes on Alice and Otto.

"The cave is just up there," Audric said, waving a hand up at a rocky rise above. "We're not going up there to get shot at again."

"Thank you," Alice said in her low voice. She and Otto shared a glance, then scrambled up the last few yards. Alice had intended to pause at the top to scope out the situation, but Otto pulled himself over the rise. A moment later a blinding blue _flash _went off and Otto threw himself down again, skidding a few feet down the shale rock as he swore in gruff German.

"_Shh,_" Alice hissed, even as she eyed the tree behind them which the blue projectile had just vaporized. "The last thing these men need to hear is German."

"Next time I get shot at I'll be more careful with my language then," Otto huffed, then pulled himself up a few feet. "How are we going to do this? I saw the cave, it's about a hundred yards to the left. Didn't see anyone, but they must have a lookout."

"Okay." Alice clenched her fists, then stretched up so she was just below the lip of the rise. She cleared her throat and called out in a clear, male American accent: "Hello there!"

Ears straining, she heard mutters above.

"My name is Al Johnson," she called. Otto watched her. "I'm a US Army undercover agent here in France, and I got word that there might be some countrymen in need of an assist. Is that correct?"

There was a short pause. She heard more mutters, and a scrape of gravel.

"What's your service number?" came a suspicious shout.

Otto frowned.

"54985870," Alice recited. Otto's eyes widened, and she just shook his head at him. She'd said the first service number that had come to her head: Steve's. She'd read it off his dogtags in Italy.

Another moment passed. "We… how did you know we were here?" The same voice from before. The man had a West coast accent.

"I think you've met my friends here, they're in the French Resistance. They reached out and let me know you might be in trouble. Do you mind my asking how many of you there are?"

"... There's eight of us left. What division are you with?"

"The Strategic Scientific Reserve, you might've heard of 'em. Based out of New York," she said. "Where are you fellas from?"

"Seattle, Texas, Ohio, and Queens."

"Queens, huh?" Alice put a smile in her voice. "I'm from Brooklyn."

Another long pause. "We… didn't think there'd be anyone coming for us. No one came for us for two years, so we got out on our own. Everyone thinks we're dead."

"Well I can't promise it'll be easy," Alice called, "But I can promise that I'm going to do absolutely everything I can to get you boys home safe. What d'you say you let me climb on up there and talk with you face to face? I'm not armed, and neither is my colleague here."

"Colleague?" The suspicion was back.

"He's" - Alice hesitated for a moment - "another agent with the SSR." She lowered her voice. "Otto, try not to speak until I can calm these men down. There's no getting around your accent." He nodded.

Alice lifted her head again. "So what do you say?"

The longest pause yet followed. Alice listened with her eyes closed and her fingers crossed.

Finally: "Alright, come on up - but keep your arms up, we're going to search you."

Alice and Otto shared one last grim glance, and then pulled themselves up over the lip of the rise. Alice tried not to screw her face up in wariness. But no more blasts of blue light erupted on the mountaintop: instead, Alice found herself looking down the barrels of two glowing blue HYDRA assault rifles, held by two gaunt, wiry-looking men with thick beards and desperate eyes. She allowed her gaze to flick sideways to the cave opening and spied six other figures in the shadowy darkness.

"Well hello," Alice said in a calm voice. She kept her arms raised. "You wanted to search us?"

The man on the left jerked his head. "Williams."

One of the men from the cave strode out, eyes darting over Alice and Otto. He had dark shadows under his eyes. Alice held still as he came up to them and felt their clothes for weapons. She hoped he didn't notice the bandages binding her chest.

Once Williams pulled away and nodded to the two men with the HYDRA weapons, Alice took a few tentative steps forward. When neither man threatened to shoot her, she held out her hand. "Like I said, the name's Al."

The men stared at her for a few more moments. She saw their fear and suspicion in their eyes, in their rigid grip on the HYDRA weapons and their coiled muscles. She felt the men in the cave watching her.

"Look," Alice sighed. "If you like, I'll leave here tonight and never come back. The _Maquis_ down there won't be happy about it, but I'll tell them to leave you alone. But…" she looked over them all. "I don't know exactly what you've been through, but it's clear you've been through hell. I think you deserve to feel like you're not alone. I think you deserve a good meal, and a chance at getting home."

She kept her hand extended.

Otto remained a few paces behind her, wariness radiating from him. But her eyes were on the men ahead of her: they exchanged a glance loaded with meaning, the glance of two men who'd fought death together.

Then, as one, they lowered their weapons. The man on the left stepped forward and took her hand.

"Nice to meet you, Al. Thanks for coming."

* * *

Alice spent almost the rest of the night slowly working to get the eight men in the cave to trust her. First it was to coax the six in the cave out: two of them were injured, and all of them took in her every move with suspicion and wariness. Then it was to convince them all to come down to the _Maquis _camp to get some food.

As this progressed, Alice and Otto slowly learned more about the men and their stories. They were all US Navy. Their ship had been torpedoed two years ago by a HYDRA submarine. A hundred men had survived, and HYDRA fished them out of the water and took them to a factory in the Pyrénées - Alice and Otto exchanged a glance at that. They'd been near worked to death for years, until the remaining twenty staged an escape.

They didn't describe their escape in detail, but Alice knew better than to ask why only eight of twenty remained.

Talking ceased as the eight men wolfed down food in the _Maquis _camp. Alice and Otto saw the _Maquisards _looking a little disgruntled, and chose that moment to hand them a fat bag of money.

"For the meal," Otto said, with a smile.

Then the game of trust and suspicion continued - after two hours Alice convinced the men to leave their two HYDRA weapons with the _Maquis_, who she instructed to use the weapons to trick the Nazis into thinking HYDRA was attacking them.

Then she and Otto convinced the sailors down the mountain and into a borrowed truck. They drove back to Toulouse in tense silence, and just before dawn smuggled the men into the house of a _Résistance _ally. The men were a little wild-eyed at being amongst civilisation again, but seemed to have decided to throw their lot in with 'Al'. From the hollows in their cheeks and the way they wheezed climbing up the stairs to the safehouse, Alice didn't think they'd have survived much longer up in that cave.

Back at the hotel, Alice and Otto didn't get a chance to catch up on sleep. Instead, with Heidi and the backup singer/resistance agent Anna's help, they worked through the next day putting together a plan to get the eight POWs to safety.

* * *

"Okay," Alice breathed, eyes darting. "_Go!_"

As a unit she, Otto, and the eight POWs pelted from the back of their truck and into an open, flat grass field toward a distant beach.

Two days had passed since Alice and Otto's trip to the Pyrénées. They'd decided to hide the POWs in plain sight: four of them as bag carriers and assistants in the Siren's busy retinue, three as Otto's employees in the production company, and one of them had posed as the backup singer Anna's latest beau. They had travelled with the Siren's retinue (none of them any the wiser that 'Al' was really Alice) north from Toulouse, through Paris, and then to Rennes near the west coast. A few of them had even helped out with Alice's performance last night.

The men wore their disguises now as they ran through ankle-height grass in the dead of night: second-hand suits, a few pairs of workmen's overalls, and Anna's 'beau' wore a stylish trench coat. They'd all shaved their beards and had a few square meals so they more or less looked the part, if you ignored the desperate glint in their eyes.

Now, Alice could only hope that their courier had managed to get past the vicious front lines to pass along their message.

Clouds obscured the moon, making their surroundings nearly pitch black. Alice nearly fell half a dozen times, and hoped that meant that no one would see them. To her left she could just make out glinting lights in the ocean: they looked bizarre, but she knew them to be the lights of the Mont Saint Michel abbey. She'd never seen the tidal island before, only in pictures.

Mont Saint Michel was 60 miles south of the fighting: close enough that it would be feasible for a small troop carrier to sail here in the dead of night from Allied-occupied Créances, but not so close that they'd have gunfire rattling over their heads. In fact, it seemed most Nazi troops had deserted the area aside from a few lookouts left behind to keep watch for more invasion craft. No one would notice a small ship.

Alice felt the grass beneath her feet give way to shifting sand, and slowed her doubled-over sprint. She and the other men sank into crouches.

"I can't see anything," panted Griffiths, the defacto leader of the POWs. He sounded close to tears.

Alice bit the inside of her cheek, thinking, but then she heard it: five long, low notes, almost akin to an owl's mournful hoot. A grin spread across her face. "Follow me." She inched along the beach, unable to see much beyond the few feet of sand ahead of her and the distant lights of Mont Saint Michel. The invisible ocean crashed back and forth to her right.

She thought she heard voices over the sound of the waves, and a second later she almost bumped right into Falsworth.

He gripped her by the arms, tightly at first until he recognised her, and she could just make out the smile that lit up his face. "_Al_!" he exclaimed, and glanced up to squint at the nine men who'd shuffled along behind her. He looked over his shoulder and called lowly: "I found them!" He looked back. "We had a job getting here, you know, and we've just been thinking we missed our landing point again!"

"Thank you for coming," Alice said, squeezing his shoulder in return. No other team could have come so quickly.

She heard more footsteps in the sand, and then figures appeared around them. The moon peeked through the clouds for a moment so Alice could make out the 107th Tactical Team: Gabe and Dernier's grinning faces, Dugan's bowler hat, Morita in his slouch cap, and there: Bucky, his eyes almost glowing in the darkness. Steve's shield gleamed in what little light there was, and then she saw his face. His eyes roved over her, taking her in.

"Who the hell is that?" whispered Griffiths from behind Alice.

"He's Captain America, I told you that," she said, half-smiling. She turned back to Steve. "You'll have to excuse them, they haven't had the chance to pick up a comic book in a few years."

"Understandable," Steve smiled. He shuffled closer so all the POWs could see him. "Alright, here's what's going to happen. My good friends Morita and Dugan here are going to take you guys to the ship thats going to get you out of here. We've got a straight shot back to the island of Jersey, and there's an aircraft waiting there to take you fellas to London. Understand?"

There was a low murmur of assent, and then Morita and Dugan stepped forward to guide the POWs. They began to fade into the darkness, but then Alice noticed their figures pause. Griffiths had stopped walking.

"Hey, Al," came his low voice.

"Yes?"

"We meant to say it earlier, but… thank you. For everything. Both of you."

Alice couldn't see them at all, but she suspected the cover of darkness had prompted the honesty from the traumatised man. She allowed her true feelings to play across her face, safe in the knowledge that no one would see.

When she'd composed herself a moment later, she responded hoarsely: "Of course." She swallowed. "Thank me by getting home safe, and living well. Be kind to yourselves. Have a drink on me."

A low rustle of laughter. "Will do. _Au revoir_."

"_Au revoir_," Alice and Otto responded together.

Smiling, Alice listened to their footsteps fade. The moonlight was swallowed up by the thick cloud cover once more, stealing Alice's ability to see anything but the distant glow of Mont Saint Michel.

When nothing but the sound of rushing waves filled the air, Bucky spoke:

"The SSR'll have them checked out by doctors, but right after that they're going to have to go through some pretty heavy questioning. They were with HYDRA for two years, at a factory we didn't know about. Plus they'll have to be sworn to secrecy about how they got out."

Alice reached out toward his voice until she found his elbow. "Hi."

"Hi," he responded with a smile in his voice.

"Speaking of that, though," she added, "Otto and I are going to start running intel on the Pyrénées to isolate that base. The _Maquis _there have agreed to help us."

She sensed Otto nod beside her. "HYDRA has a knack for finding wild country with few civilians to talk about them."

Steve's hand emerged out of the darkness and landed unerringly on Alice's shoulder. "Peggy couldn't come tonight - too flat out in London - but she said to treat tonight as your monthly debrief. What do you guys have?"

"We thought the same," Alice replied, and rested her hand over his. She squeezed his fingers. "Otto brought an intel packet with everything that hasn't come through to you already. Officer profiles, general atmosphere behind the lines, expectations for the coming attacks. There's also compiled intelligence from the _Maquis _groups we're in touch with."

She heard a rustle of paper as Otto handed the packet to someone - Gabe, she thought.

"Other than that," Otto said, "we will follow up on the Pyrénées factory, and we also have reports of increased HYDRA activity southeast of Orléans which we are attempting to centralize. The Red Skull has been seen several times in France, but not lately - we suspect he has returned to their main headquarters. Doctor Zola continues to travel from base to base to make up for the damage caused by their recent losses - thanks to yourselves - but we're never able to uncover any advance notice of his travel."

"We'll pin them down when they have fewer hidey holes to run to," Bucky said grimly. "Anything else?"

"That about covers it," Alice said. "Any requests?"

Steve and Alice now stood so close together that she felt him shrug. "We're still trying to break out of Normandy with the rest of the Allies. We'll be back on the real hunt soon." He flipped his hand on Alice's shoulder to take her hand. "Thank you for my scarf, by the way."

She grinned up at him. She could barely make out any details of his face but she savored what she could: the light in his eyes, the shape of his nose and mouth under his cowl, the smile on his lips. The stupid white _A _on his forehead. She could smell the gunsmoke and sweat scent of him on the sea air.

"You're welcome."

Otto asked Dernier a question in French - something about the _Résistance _in Marseilles - and Alice glanced around. She could hear and sense the presence of other people, of course, but everything was pitch black. Probably only Steve could see anything.

_Why waste an opportunity?_

Utterly silently, Alice stretched up on her toes and tugged on Steve's hand to get the message across. He responded instantly, as if he'd been thinking the same thing: His suit creaked slightly as he leaned into her. Alice couldn't suppress her smile when their noses collided. They adjusted swiftly and then Steve's lips were on hers, his hand rising to cup the back of her head. Alice gripped one of the shield harness straps running across his chest to bring herself closer.

Alice thought, for a brief moment, that in another time this could be the height of romance: they stood on a beach near one of the most beautiful and unique abbeys in the world, the wind in their hair and their arms around one another. But then she remembered it was the middle of the night only a few miles away from the most violent battlefront of the war, and they were being utterly silent to avoid letting the soldiers surrounding them know what they were up to.

But then Steve tilted his head slightly and moved his lips against hers with more urgency, and all thoughts of romance and darkness flew out of Alice's head as she tried to convince herself not to sigh.

Another second later, they pulled apart. Alice made out the gleam of Steve's smile, and felt his hand curve down to her jaw, a silent conversation. She squeezed his other hand again.

"What do you think, Cap?" asked Falsworth.

Alice sensed Steve's befuddlement even though she couldn't quite make out his face, and stifled a laugh.

"I agree," Steve said confidently. He gently tapped his finger against the side of Alice's jaw, as if to say _I heard that._

"Alright," Falsworth said. "Let's head back to the ship then."

"Damn," Steve murmured, only just loud enough for Alice to overhear, and she felt him trace the edge of her smile as he pulled away. "Good work, you two. Be safe, and I…" she sensed a moment of hesitation. "We'll see you when we see you."

Otto said his farewells, and Alice murmured under her breath: "I love you." She hoped Steve heard it.

His fingers tightened on hers for a fraction longer, and then their hands slipped apart.

"Goodbye," Alice called.

"Bye, troublemaker," came Bucky's wry farewell, and he fumbled for her elbow in parting.

Alice and Otto stood side by side on the dark beach, listening as the 107th Tactical Team trudged away up the sand.

When they couldn't hear anything other than the waves and the wind whistling through the grass, and the warmth of Steve's touch had faded from Alice's skin, Otto let out a sigh.

"Now we have to try to find the truck in the dark."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always you guys are the best, and I hope you're all safe and healthy x


	45. Chapter Thirty Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To my US readers (and, in fact, all of you), stay strong, stay safe. Steve and Alice would be behind you.

July, 1944

Alice had never had such a flexible performance schedule before: wherever she wished to go, the local troops would have her. Commanders were desperate for a morale boost for their troops, and a taste of normalcy. What had once been a planned-out and rigid schedule became a frantic dash around to sing for exhausted, mud and blood spattered troops. Alice allowed herself to pity them (she'd realized that the ability to stop seeing others as human was a distinctly Nazi trait) but continued working every waking minute to bring their enemies to their doorstep.

Once a week, she and Otto sent a telegram back to Berlin with their upcoming performances, and two days later they got their paychecks. Alice resolved that once the war was over she'd give all the money away to the people who'd really earned it: everyone who'd taken a stand, and everyone who'd been forced to flee.

The Allies still had not broken out of their small pocket of northern Normandy. Steve and his team fought to push out the borders, but they'd also started taking on similar missions to what they'd done in Italy - penetrating miles deep into enemy territory via airdrops or subterfuge, hunting out HYDRA pockets.

In early July the main bulk of the SSR traveled over from London, satisfied that the Allied foothold in France was sturdy enough to create another base of operations. Alice and Otto were glad to see Peggy's direct hand in their operations again. Peggy had the sharpest mind for espionage that Alice had ever encountered. And she wasn't afraid to make bold choices.

* * *

Excerpt from '_Battle of the Hedgerows: War at Close Quarter' _by William Borre (1982):

_Following the successful linkup of the beachheads on the north coast of Normandy, it was then left for the First US Army to move south to the town of St Lô. The Allied commanders had actually hoped to take _ _St Lô in the first invasions in June, but a lack of resources and fiercer-than-anticipated German defense had put off that goal. But on July 3rd the advance began again. _

_... intelligence had not accounted for the terrain to be fought through: miles of small fields marked out by low hedgerows which restricted visibility and mobility to the extent that tanks and troops could not easily roll through to the German defenders. The terrain favored the defenders, and the Germans had had time to lay defenses. Success did not depend on the number of tanks, planes, or men: in a field with 300 feet of visibility in any direction, it was the sharpest soldier who won out at the end of the day._

_Slowly, the Americans began to push the Germans south._

* * *

Early July, 1944

When it came down to it, Alice didn't find crossing the front lines in Normandy that difficult. It wasn't _easy_, sure, but she had intelligence from both sides about where the fighting would be today, so she simply took a circuitous route to avoid it. She crossed through a bombed-out village in the pale early morning light, picking her way through craters and rubble. There were a couple of German sentries watching the village, but they were both distracted watching the bombardment a few miles east. They were really here to look out for whole troops, anyway, not a single woman dressed as a young man.

She scurried from the village and into a nearby thicket of trees, then paused to hoist the sack of flour higher up over her shoulder. She wore dark men's clothes, threadbare and mud-strewn like every other civilian who lived in this area, and a slouch hat over her hair. She was already regretting the flour: it was a good cover, and excellent concealment for the documents she'd brought with her, but her shoulders ached.

_So this is Allied territory_, she thought as she walked out through the thicket and onto a scuffed dirt road. Her surroundings looked just as bombed out and destitute as the other side of the front line, the ground torn up by hundreds of heavy tire treads, thousands of marching feet and countless bombing raids. As she walked she started to spot a few other civilians, most of them carrying loads like her - they'd probably remained behind despite evacuation, survived the invasion, and now lived in the strange limbo of the battlefront.

As she continued walking, she began to see the Allied forces: encampments in the distance, makeshift airfields, troops marching down what used to be quiet country lanes. As she moved deeper into Allied territory, she passed by a group of soldiers smoking near an encampment of green canvas tents. One of them shouted a question at her. Alice responded in confused French, and they all ignored her.

Finally she spotted an encampment on a sandy rise, with wire fences and a signpost reading _Strategic Scientific Reserve - 107th Regiment - Approved Personnel Only. _There were guards at every entryway.

Alice kept her distance, circling until she found a gnarled, forked tree near a marsh. She eased down her sack of flour with a sigh and leaned against the tree to wait.

After a few minutes, in which she stretched her shoulders and checked her disguise, she heard a low whistle.

She glanced up to see Bucky and Gabe strolling down the rise toward her, their uniforms loose and unclipped as if they'd just woken up.

"I told you she'd beat us here!" Bucky exclaimed as he jogged the last few steps to wrap Alice in a hug. He smelled like coffee. "Hi, troublemaker."

Gabe waved, but he had a frown on his brow. "I'm a little alarmed at how easy it is for a German to get all the way in here."

"I'm Austrian, remember?" Alice said as Bucky released her. "Besides, no regular German could get through so easily. I had help." She tapped the side of her nose, then reached out to shake Gabe's hand in greeting.

With Bucky and Gabe as escorts, they turned toward the SSR encampment (Bucky carried Alice's flour sack for her as if it weighed nothing, which annoyed her). With Bucky by her side, Alice suddenly felt at ease - as if this were just a stroll through the early morning sunshine.

"It's good to see you again," she smiled at both of them. "In daylight, too!"

"We sure are spoiled," Bucky teased. They came to the edge of the camp and slipped through a narrow gap in the fence. "Peggy made sure the guard for this entrance got called off for five minutes," he explained.

"At least someone had faith in my timeliness," Alice teased. Bucky rolled his eyes and Gabe laughed under his breath, but she found herself immediately distracted by the scale of the SSR camp. Where most of the other Allied encampments she'd seen had been hasty tent constructions, the SSR had managed to put up half a dozen prefabricated buildings, a watchtower, and several large shipping containers. Orderly rows of tents radiated away from the epicenter of the camp, ranging from large command tents to individual infantry accommodation. This was a functional, organized space, and the dirt was already well tamped down.

Alice realized with a jolt that this looked much like the countless German camps she'd been in, save for the flags and insignias.

The camp was still just waking up: sounds of murmured conversations and yawns rose up from the tents, and somewhere Alice could hear a water pump running. Pale dawn light streamed down on the tents. Occasionally a soldier passed them, wearing light sleep clothes and slouching slightly - though when they spotted Bucky and Gabe they always snapped into a smart salute.

She squinted up at the watchtower, and blinked at the sight of a camera crew crammed into the space at the top, with a large film camera and a few smaller photography ones. They appeared to be filming towards the ocean.

"Oh yeah, they're our paparazzi," Bucky said drily. "Steve's gone and got himself so famous that they need to film his every move."

"That wouldn't be so bad," Gabe laughed, "But they want all this footage of us too! They went with us on a raid last week. Have to admit the camera operators have some balls."

The film camera swung around to point down into the camp, and Alice ducked her head. "Are they filming now?"

"Probably fishing for B-roll," Bucky frowned. "I'll go ask them to scrap the film-"

"Don't, that'll draw attention. I'll talk to Peggy when I see her."

"Alright." Bucky shrugged, then checked his watch. "Look, I know we told you 6:30, but Phillips had a surprise meeting in the command tent so we're going to hide you in Steve's tent until he's finished."

Alice arched an eyebrow. "And that's the _only _place you could think to hide me, huh?"

Bucky grinned. "He's got the biggest tent! But if you'd rather stay in mine…" he waggled his eyebrows at her.

Alice sighed, even as she suppressed a laugh. "I thought we were past this, Bucky. Remember last time?"

Bucky leaned behind her toward Gabe and confided: "She threatened to poison my popcorn."

"I'd believe her, man."

"Oh I did," Bucky said. He nudged Alice. "Here we are."

Alice looked up to see a light green canvas officer's tent pitched near one of the prefabricated buildings. There were a few boxes stacked outside and some socks hung out to dry on one of the tent lines, but overall it looked very tidy. Bucky stepped forward to lift up the canvas flap.

"This feels… inappropriate," Alice muttered as she ducked and stepped inside the tent. Gabe and Bucky followed her in and dropped the flap.

The tent was still relatively light, since the far end of the canvas had a window flap with hazy fabric that allowed sunlight to diffuse through. The inside reminded Alice, strangely, of Steve's childhood bedroom back in Brooklyn: orderly, neat, with everything in its proper place. And yet it didn't seem spartan.

Steve's bedroll sat neatly at the end of his camp bed, his single bag rested in the corner beside a radio, ammunition box and small pile of cooking utensils. A collapsible camp table sat in the other corner, with various maps, documents and a gaslamp arranged on top of it. Alice spotted his strategy books and smiled. He must have been studying in the night.

"Gotta admit," said Bucky, following Alice's line of sight, "He's a lot better at planning missions than I'd expected, given his general battle tactic back in Brooklyn."

"I've never seen a tactician like him," said Gabe loyally.

Alice spotted a glint of metal under the bed, and ducked to see his Vibranium shield resting on the bare ground.

The canvas flap rustled and Alice straightened to see the man himself ducking into the tent.

She swallowed. She hadn't seen Steve in daylight since Italy, and in the small space of the tent the size and reality of him was overwhelming. He'd stopped in his tracks. He wore his uniform save for the cowl and gauntlets, and his cheeks were pinked from the cool dawn air. The diffused light in the tent softened the rough edges of his uniform and illuminated his eyes.

She wondered how he could look at her like _that _and not expect her to be struck speechless.

Bucky and Gabe shared a glance, then Bucky looked down at his watch. "We've got a minute before we're due in the command tent. We'll give you two a moment alone." And with that, they shuffled past Steve and out of the tent. Bucky tugged out the flour sack.

Alice let out a long breath, watching Steve. She felt suddenly self conscious, as if this were the first time he'd ever seen her in chest bindings and worn clothes, her hair tucked away and her face roughened to appear more masculine.

He swallowed. "Hi."

She smiled and managed to unstick her jelly legs to move forward. "Hi."

It felt as if they should launch forward and sweep each other into their arms, but instead they shuffled together almost shyly. Alice's hand brushed Steve's arm and she suddenly found herself holding him, her arms around his shoulders and his arms tight around her. His uniform smelled like smoke. She pressed her eyes shut and allowed a tear to roll down her cheek.

"I missed you," she breathed.

Steve didn't reply. She could feel the slightest of tremors in his arms as he held her. It reminded her of days long past when Steve would shake in the cold or in the midst of a fever.

His lips pressed into her hair and she felt him breathe out against her.

"Happy birthday, by the way," she murmured. She hadn't seen him since June, and he'd turned 26 on the 4th. "I don't have a present."

He smiled into her hair. "This is enough."

Outside the tent, Bucky cleared his throat. "Guys, meeting?"

They pulled apart. Alice slid her hand up to the back of Steve's neck, smiling, and pulled him into a quick kiss. Or at least she meant for it to be quick, but then he fell into her enthusiastically, hands suddenly confident, and she was breathless when Bucky lifted up the tent flap.

"Eugh," Bucky said as they broke apart. "I'm serious, Phillips is coming this way and you don't want him to see you like this."

Alice touched her cap, grimaced as she realised her hair pins had come loose, then wiped her mouth. She and Steve grinned at each other before they ducked out of the tent together.

"Honestly," Bucky muttered as he held the tent flap up for them. "It's not like there's a war on or anything." But he finished with a smile at Alice, and she reached over to squeeze his shoulder.

"Hey!" The four of them looked over to see Colonel Phillips scowling at them. He held up his watch and tapped it. "Do they not teach students how to tell time in Brooklyn?"

When Alice slipped into the office-sized canvas command tent she swept her gaze around to check that there were no unexpected visitors. Peggy stood with her hands planted on the large table at the center of the tent, her eyes warming at the sight of Alice, and the rest of Steve's men were arrayed around the space. Colonel Phillips was already at the head of the table, and Steve, Bucky, and Gabe filed in after Alice.

Alice was just in the process of tugging her cap off to fix her hair when an unexpected voice spoke up from behind Peggy:

"So you're this inside man I've been hearing abo-whoah!"

Howard Stark, in a smart brown outfit with a vest, had just risen from his seat behind Peggy, rubbing his hands, to see Alice's hair fall haphazardly around her shoulders. He glanced around wildly, but no one else in the tent looked surprised.

_So no one told Stark, then, _Alice realized. She shrugged to herself and began fixing her hairpins.

Stark stood with his arms hanging by his sides and said "Inside _woman,_" in a startled and thoughtful voice.

Alice strode up to the command table, smiling to everyone in greeting, and waited for Stark to recognize her. Peggy was clearly waiting as well, one hand on her hip and her eyebrow raised as she glanced back at Stark.

When nothing seemed to click in the genius's expression, Alice held out a hand. "Nice to meet you."

He took her hand. "Yeah, it's… it's nice to meet you." The dazedness started to clear from his face, and suddenly his hold on her hand became a little steadier. "What's your name, beautiful?"

Beside him, Peggy rolled her eyes. "Mind of a genius, memory of a goldfish," she muttered.

"Al," Alice told Stark, and then added: "And what's your name?" Like she hadn't had to put up with Bucky drooling over the man's designs since he first came onto the scene with Stark Industries, and like she hadn't been slightly starstruck the _first _time they met. She sensed Steve hide his smile as he took his position at the table.

Stark looked startled, bewildered, and then offended in that order. "I…" Alice fought to keep her face completely innocent. "I'm Howard Stark. _Howard Stark_," he repeated with emphasis, as if she were a forgetful old woman.

"Howard Stark," she repeated without emphasis. She glanced down at her hand. A"re you going to let go of me, or do I have to convince you?" She made sure with the steady look in her eyes that he knew that _convincing _wouldn't be pleasant.

As everyone else in the command tent watched, Stark reluctantly let her go.

Steve watched cautiously, until Bucky patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, pal," he murmured. "Stark may be good, but he's not _Alice _good."

"Can we get some actual work done?" Phillips said, and everyone gathered around the table.

In the rustle of movement, Alice leaned toward Peggy and murmured an explanation of what had happened with the camera crew outside.

Peggy frowned. "I review everything they publish so I'll keep an eye out for it. As long as it's impossible to tell your identity from the footage, it should be fine."

Alice nodded, and then turned to the table at large. "Alright." She ducked down, heaved up her sack of flour and then set it on the command table, which was already packed full of maps and diagrams. She slit open the top of the sack, dug her hand in, then extracted her small stack of documents. After shaking off as much flour as she could, she set them down on the table. "This is what we have."

Since rescuing the POWs in the Pyrénées, Alice and Otto had diverted most of their effort toward finding and reconnoitering the HYDRA base there. The SSR had also turned their focus toward the mountain range, after gathering all the intelligence they could from the POWs (who were on their way back to the US now) and had invited Alice to their camp to discuss final intelligence before they moved on the base.

Alice had brought photographs of the factory taken by the _Maquis_, sentry schedules, hand drawn maps, and notes on the identified HYDRA members. Taking charge of the meeting she talked the 107th Tactical Team through everything she had, then compared it to what she could see on the table before her: aerial and topographical maps, as well as maps of troop lines.

They asked questions as she went, asking her to clarify points or asking her what she'd learned about a specific part of the terrain. They seemed particularly interested in weather patterns, which she guessed meant they were thinking of an aerial assault, but she didn't ask.

All in all her brief took the better part of an hour. She was just coming to the end, discussing the temperament of the HYDRA general in charge of the base, when Stark opened his mouth.

"How do you _know _that?" It was the first time he'd really spoken since she began. He'd been watching them all discuss the maps and photographs, eyes sharp, and she'd sensed his mounting suspicion and surprise as she went on.

Alice's eyebrows rose. "I've been performing in the south of France for most of the last month. Aside from learning what I can from the _Maquis _and running surveillance myself, I've also been dining with the Wehrmacht generals in the area. They don't know about the base, but they did work with this HYDRA general before the schism, so they know all about how he thinks."

"Okay," Stark said, "But how can we trust this information?"

Alice shrugged. "Trust isn't something I can convince you to have."

Stark glanced around at the others around the table: hard-faced Phillips, Peggy with her unreadable calm, Steve and Bucky's utter confidence and the rest of the team nodding. Seeing that no one had any qualms, he shrugged. "Alright then."

Alice moved on to the intelligence that she couldn't verify, but had guessed from various snatches of conversation or extrapolated from how other HYDRA facilities had run.

Finally, Steve bent over the map and said: "Alright, so if we send a detachment of troops to-"

"Stop!" Alice said, straightening. They all glanced over at her and she shook her head. "That's not what this is about. Don't tell me what you're planning."

"What?" Steve frowned.

But Peggy and Phillips had caught on: their faces were grim.

Alice met Steve's eyes. "I don't need to know any of that side of things to do my job. I don't _want _to know. I would _recommend _that you send troops here" - she pointed to an incline on the topographical map, beside a corresponding photograph of the same area - "and up here" - she pointed again - "so that you can pincer HYDRA's forces in this mountain pass before taking the factory from the cliffs up here. But that's just my recommendation. No idea if you'll take it or not."

She glanced around, nodded to Peggy and Phillips, smiled briefly at everyone else, then checked her cap was in place. "I'll be where I was before while you all finish." With that, she slipped out of the tent.

Steve watched her go with a grave look.

Stark frowned. "Wait, why doesn't she want to know that? Isn't this a planning session?"

"If she doesn't have the information," Peggy said gently, "she can't give it up later."

"Why would she-" but then Stark saw everyone's grim faces. "Oh."

Steve almost looked angry now, but he bunched his shoulders and turned back to the maps. He picked up the wooden marker they'd been using to indicate their troops and moved it to the mountain pass. "She's right with her recommendation," he said evenly. "That's the best way to cover the factory and the troops surrounding it with minimum casualties on our end. So next question is insertion of the troops."

* * *

Alice slipped back through the camp and into Steve's tent to wait out the rest of the meeting. Strangely overwhelmed, she lay down on his camp bed with a sigh.

For a long moment she just stared up at the hazy canvas ceiling, loose-limbed and fuzzy-minded. She wasn't sure why the meeting had taken so much out of her. She rolled onto her side, making the bed creak, and then pressed her face to Steve's pillow: a standard-issue Army pillow, but it smelled like him. She closed her eyes.

_Embarrassing, Alice. Very embarrassing._

She opened her eyes again and spotted a notebook resting on a bag across the tent. From the well-worn spine and the stubby pencil stuck to it by an elastic band, she recognised it as Steve's sketch notebook. _I haven't seen his drawings for ages!_

She rolled off the bed and picked up the notebook, smiling. If this were anyone else's she would never consider opening it (unless they were a Nazi), but Steve's notebooks had always been open to her before. They'd grown up sharing their work. So with gentle fingers, Alice opened the cover.

She found herself instantly absorbed. Etched across the pages were landscapes of the war from forests to vast open seas, scenes from Steve's USO tour, self-effacing portraits, and sketches of his men. He'd really managed to capture Dugan's boisterous charm in one finely-detailed pencil portrait - Dugan must have sat for it, Alice thought. There were a few of Peggy and Phillips too. One sketch of Peggy decking a recruit made her chuckle. His art had evolved since the last time he'd sent her a drawing in a letter; she noticed a finer eye for detail, and more artistic and emotional depth. To Alice it was if before he'd been drawing beautiful melodies, but now he'd evolved to symphonies.

And there were so, so many drawings of Alice. They made her heart hurt: the longing, care, and adoration in every detail. Alice curled up and laughing on a couch, a teenaged Alice singing in church, Alice standing with a smoking gun in her hand and ice in her eyes. He'd spent longer shading her eyes than he had on most of his other sketches. Flipping through the notebook, Alice traced her own depiction with a fingertip. She wished that Steve drew more of himself - but that wasn't really his way. As always, his last thought was of himself.

The tent flap rustled as Steve stepped inside. He saw Alice perched on the edge of his bed, bent over his notebook, and the tips of his ears went red.

Alice offered him a sad smile. "Sorry, I thought you wouldn't mind-"

"I don't," he said hurriedly, "I just, shouldn't have left that lying out-"

"I love them." Alice stood, the book still cracked open, and when she glanced down at it to see her own face looking up at her her heart wrenched. She looked back up at Steve and his embarrassment became concern at the sorrow in her eyes.

"What is it?" he whispered.

Alice touched her own portrait. "You… you can't keep these." At his wrinkled brow she swallowed and added: "I mean, you can keep drawing. But Steve… you can't draw _me_." All it would take is just one wrong person seeing a single one of these drawings, and it could all be over - Alice's cover, Otto's cover, half the SSR's intelligence network in Europe.

Realization flooded Steve's gaze, shortly followed by a deep furrow in his brow as his expression became shocked and guilty and heart-wrenched all at once. "Jeez, Alice, of course, I - I…" she shook his head and took the notebook, frowning at himself. "I'm an idiot, I'm sorry-"

"No," she shook her head. She stepped forward and took his hands, pressing them close against the notebook as she leaned into him. She rested her forehead against his chest, the notebook between their bodies, and he looked down at her. Alice sighed. "I'm sorry it's like this, Steve," she whispered.

"Don't be," he murmured back. One of his hands rose to stroke over her cheek. She still didn't look up at him. He swallowed. "I'd thought about putting a picture of you in my compass, y'know, but I figured that'd be too dangerous. It's enough for me to know the compass is from you. But I didn't realize about the notebook. You don't need to worry, I'll get rid of these… these drawings, and I won't make any more."

"I'm sorry." She knew that drawing for him was like singing for her: it was how he spoke, how he saw the world. By asking this of Steve, she was silencing him. And the idea of his notebook without her in it made her heart hurt. It felt like erasing herself from the world.

"Don't be," he said more firmly. He slid the notebook down and out of her fingers, tossed it onto his bed and then leaned back to take both her hands in his. She looked up into his earnest blue eyes. "There's going to be a day, soon," he began. He swallowed. "There's going to be a day when I can draw you as much as I like. I'm going to draw you in Brooklyn, or wherever else you want to go. I'll draw you out in the sunshine, and while you sing, and I'll draw you in our home." Tears sprang to Alice's eyes. "And I'll put those drawings up for anyone and everyone to see."

Alice beamed, even as tears slipped down her face. She never cried so much as when she was with Steve. He was safety to her. And he also broke her heart.

They hadn't really talked about what lay between them, or what it could be. But Steve was earnest and determined - of course he was - and Alice couldn't bear to hope for the future he described but she knew that it would be exciting, and beautiful. She wanted nothing more.

"I'd like that," she finally whispered. She leaned up to kiss him, and when they were just a breath apart she murmured: "And when that day comes, I'll make sure that everyone knows that when I sing I do it for you. I always have." She heard and felt his breath hitch, and then she kissed him.

Some time later Bucky burst into the tent without knocking, and wolf whistled them just to make Alice scowl and Steve blush.

"Peggy's arranged another five minute rest for the gate guard," he said with false lightness in his tone.

They all knew she had to go, but none of them said it. They simply filed out of the tent and Bucky and Steve escorted her to the camp exit, talking about the hassle of having a camera crew follow them around and how nice the weather had been in Normandy recently.

At the gate, before a sad silence could fall over them, Alice turned and shook Bucky's hand. Anyone could be watching, after all. "Until next time," she smiled.

"Sure thing, troublemaker," he smiled.

When Alice turned to shake Steve's hand, they both clung to each other's hands like one of them was dangling off a cliff and that was the only lifeline they had. The handshake went on for far too long, and they didn't say a word, but Bucky didn't tease them.

Alice opened her mouth to say goodbye, but then thought better of it. She smiled, gently slid her fingers out of Steve's, and then turned and strode away.

Watching her go, Steve let out a heavy sigh.

Bucky clapped him on the shoulder. "One of these days the two of you'll be walking off together, pal."

Steve nodded silently, thinking that perhaps that day might be sooner than he realized.

* * *

Clipping from _History Film Forum _discussion 'Captain America in Film', hosted by the Smithsonian Museum & The National Endowment for the Humanities (2013):

_"_ _And in our continuing analysis of the B-roll, we can see a few clips of day-to-day camp life. Here we have soldiers of the 107th at the mess tent, views of the Normandy coast line - so we know this was filmed in mid 1944 - and here, let me pause a moment. This clip is only a second long, but if you look closely... see there? That's Bucky Barnes, and that must be Gabe Jones, with another solider. Or perhaps a civilian. From this we can draw the conclusion that at least socially, the Howling Commandos were not an exclusive unit. They were all remarkably friendly, outgoing personalities who were bound to make friends wherever they went."_

* * *

After a long walk back to the mostly-evacuated town she'd been staying in, Alice arrived back at her hotel with her head full of Steve. She made sure to check her surroundings, then pulled open the door to the back entrance.

Her heart nearly leaped out of her chest when a pale hand seized the front of her shirt and yanked her inside. She reacted instantly, striking the bony edge of her hand down on her assailant's elbow, breaking the hold, and then stumbling back toward the door. But then her eyes adjusted to the gloom inside and she saw Heidi, her stylist, staring wide-eyed at her.

"Quick," Heidi hissed, ignoring the brief burst of violence. "Herr Karloff and his associates from the Propaganda Department are here with General Voigt - they've been here all morning waiting for you. Otto is with them. You can't go up there dressed like that."

Sick fear washed over Alice. "I don't… my clothes are in my room!"

Heidi's eyes widened further. "You didn't hide them down here?"

Alice shook her head numbly. _I've become relaxed_, she realized. _Thinking I could slip in and out of my hotel room like a ghost._ The fear on Heidi's face increased, but then Alice's churning mind came up with a solution. "I'll find something in the laundry room."

The two of them ran down the narrow staff hallway to the laundry room and began rifling through the hampers and drying lines.

"It's all officer's clothes," Heidi said desperately. Both of their ears were trained toward the door, expecting a hotel employee to come wandering in at any moment. Alice's heart pounded.

Finally Alice's fingers brushed light, pale cotton, and she pulled a dress out of one of the hampers of freshly-cleaned clothes. It was a light grey paisley housedress, a little older and not quite as glamorous as Alice usually wore around in public, but it would do. She stripped out of her 'Al' clothes right there in the laundry as Heidi watched the door, and yanked the stolen dress over her head. It was a few sizes too large.

Without looking back, Heidi toed off her shoes and kicked them over to Alice. Alice squeezed her feet into the leather pumps and untangled her tightly-pinned hair. There was a bucket of soapy water in the corner, which she used to splash her face clean. When she was done, she whirled back to Heidi to see the other woman offering her a tube of lipstick. Fingers shaking, Alice swiped it on. "Okay?"

Heidi's eyes swept over her. She bit her lip and nodded.

Alice swallowed. "Okay." She pushed open the laundry door and began striding toward the stairs. "Why are they here?" she asked over her shoulder.

"I don't know," Heidi murmured. "They wouldn't say."

Alice tried to calm her racing heart and churning stomach as she strode up the stairs toward her floor. A million possible explanations and excuses ran through her head, but all she could really focus on was the worst possibility: _they know._

She's often wondered what would happen if someone uncovered her and Otto's true work. Would it be an arrest? Or would it simply be men in dark uniforms stuffing them into the back of a truck and taking them to wherever disappeared people went?

Alice came to her door and lifted her chin. _Whatever's inside_, she promised herself, _they won't see my fear. _

She pushed open the door.

Instantly she let out a flustered smile, pulling the door shut behind her and straightening her dress, as if embarrassed. "I'm so sorry I'm late, I wasn't expecting you!"

The main room of her suite was full of people: Otto and four men from the Propaganda Department (including the main producer, Karloff) sitting on the white-and-gold embroidered chaises around the fireplace, along with a few of their attendants and their secretary mingling around, the local Wehrmacht general standing by the window, and a few of Alice's backup singers gathered around as if drawn magnetically to the interesting people in the hotel room.

All the men in the room stood up upon Alice's entrance, and she allowed herself to blush.

Herr Karloff frowned. "Where have you been, Frau Siren?"

Alice lifted one shoulder in embarrassment and offered a half-smile. "I like to visit with the locals to offer some charitable donations."

Karloff nodded to Otto. "As you said, Herr Klein."

Alice's smile stayed rigid. She and Otto's pre-planned excuse had worked, but the fact that it was necessary made her guts twist. _Were they testing me? _She met Otto's eyes for a fraction of a moment - he appeared outwardly placid, but she saw a hint of warning in his eyes. He didn't know what was going on here either.

"She's always out exploring," said Freya, Alice's youngest backup singer at 21. She smiled fondly. "Giving food and hand-made scarves and money to children."

Alice smiled at Freya, but she wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

Karloff cocked his head. "You really ought not to go alone, and for so long, Frau Siren."

"Yes," chimed in General Voigt from by the window. "You ought to let us know when you're out, so we can offer you protection. We're not far from the front, you know."

Alice nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but Karloff wasn't done.

"And _Résistance_ terrorists are everywhere now. They don't hesitate to hurt women and children."

"You're right," Alice agreed meekly, "I've heard of women and children being killed - despicable." She frowned. "Perhaps you're right, I should be careful. I'll take someone with me next time." Out of the corner of her eye she saw the secretary Inge's eyes narrow, as if disgusted at Alice for her unpatriotic weakness. Alice resisted glaring back.

"So," Otto said as he returned to his seat, "Now that Frau Moser is back, to what do we owe the pleasure?"

Karloff also took his seat, smiling now. "Oh, we've been on a lightning tour of France - Goebbels is concerned about morale, so we're on a fact finding mission to see what we can do. We couldn't give any advance notice since all officials have been warned to keep their movements secret to keep the French terrorists from trying anything."

"I see, that sounds like a smart move. How can we help you?"

Karloff and the other officials launched into a discussion about troop morale and entertainment, and Alice used the opportunity to make eye contact with Otto. His wariness had eased, only to be replaced by confusion.

_They didn't discuss their real purpose for visiting until I'd arrived. _Alice hesitated. _Until they verified the 'truth' of where I'd been. _She swallowed, contemplating what might have happened if her and Otto's stories hadn't matched. Her eyes flicked to General Voigt. _They suspect something. Maybe not us specifically, but they're not just here to check on morale. _

She met Otto's eyes again and a new understanding flickered between them. _We need to be more careful._

* * *

Excerpt from article '_The Final Days of Nazi Rule in France' _by Milo Stolworth, 15 Feb 2002:

_The occupiers had only become more paranoid as the war drew on, and that paranoia reached a peak following the D-Day invasions. Even the wildest theorists of the German leadership felt vindicated; they had been right about a conspiracy against them, and they were right that double agents, spies, and the French people had supported it. Leaders pushed out more propaganda and censorship to control the local populace through their _ _Propagandastaffel offices, more rations and restrictions were laid on the French citizens, and retributions against any remaining suspected Jews, _ _Résistants or spies became fierce._

* * *

The HYDRA factory in the Pyrénées fell beneath a lightning raid made up of Steve's team, troops from the 107th, and the local _Maquis. _The local Wehrmacht were none the wiser.

As July progressed, the Allies chipped away more territory in Normandy and the Germans began to grow tired. The Allies finally took the town of Caen, which they'd originally planned to take on D-Day. Behind the lines Alice heard talk of desertion and retreat; the whispers grew louder and louder as the days hammered on.

She got a few more chances to meet with the 107th Tactical Team after the Pyrénées. She and Otto were more careful than ever after the close call with the Propaganda Department, but France, which had been a steady pot of stewing chaos since 1940, had boiled over. It was easy for a singer to fall through the cracks.

From time to time the 107th Tactical Team needed an introduction to the local _Résistance _groups, who knew the area and could guide them to the local HYDRA infestation. She and Steve's men also crisscrossed the front lines for intelligence drops that could not be conveyed through song.

Their contact was as minimal as possible, but precious. Every time Alice and Steve ended up back together the air became charged and almost desperate for the first few minutes. But during that time, Alice also felt… so much more alive. Something inside her had always lit up in Steve's presence, and it ached every time she had to leave.

The 107th Tactical Team had learned how to hunt HYDRA in Italy, and they brought that knowledge to devastating effect in France. It seemed almost every other day that Alice heard of a town that had been liberated, a bunker destroyed, a supply line disrupted. She also knew that they had camera crews following them around on half their missions, since clips from the footage found its way even into Nazi-occupied France.

As the world watched the war waging in France, Alice and Steve became two sides of the same coin: the sweet voice lilting amongst the Nazis, and the hard fist that beat against them.

* * *

Early August, 1944

The Allies had begun to break out of northern Normandy, despite a brief push back by the Nazis. To the far East, Soviet troops were pushing inward and in response the Polish Home Army rose up against the Nazis in Warsaw, much to Alice's delight. Heidi's husband, a member of the underground Polish Resistance, was in the thick of the fighting.

One by one, Alice's contacts in the French Resistance went quiet. And this time the silences weren't sinister: it meant the front had moved past them, leaving them behind friendly lines.

But tonight Alice found herself deep inside unfriendly lines as per usual, wrapped up tightly in her Al clothes, sitting on a fallen log beside a pair of _Maquisards._

"Pass the brandy," said Luc, the man to her left, and Alice gladly handed the tin flask over. The small sips she'd taken had made her spine tingle.

The one to her right was smoking a poorly-rolled cigarette which kept spilling ash on his trousers. He squinted up at the night sky and coughed. "It's almost dawn."

Alice nodded silently. She wanted to tell them to be patient, but she was on tenterhooks with this particular _Maquis_ as it was. They called themselves the _Maquis du Puy du Monteil _after the mountain they'd based themselves around, and though they were loosely allied with the overarching _Résistance _they were suspicious of most authority. They were run by a handful of Great War veterans who felt both deeply betrayed by the Vichy government for capitulating to the Nazis, and resentful of Charles de Gaulle for fleeing to England for safety.

This _Maquis _hadn't been a part of the D-Day sabotage plans since it was too hard to get them in line, but Alice and Otto had been providing them with supplies and arms for the past few months anyway, since they hated the Nazis and German-allied _Milice _far more than they disliked anyone else. Alice wasn't particularly friendly with them, but they had put an iota of trust in her: which was more than they did for most people. They were also under the impression that 'Al' was French - they didn't like Americans, and Germans and Austrians even less so.

"So do you think this plan of yours will actually work?" asked Luc after taking a long gulp of brandy.

"Yes," Alice said shortly. "I have faith in the _Maquis_, and also in our allies."

"I'm not so sure about these allies," said Demont, to her right.

"They want to help those townspeople just as much as you," she gently reminded them.

"The town is heavily guarded," added Luc. "How do you expect us to succeed against those… those machines they have?"

"We will have new weapons as well."

The _Maquis du Puy du Monteil _had been complaining of Nazi hold on a town south of Montluçon for some time, but it wasn't until recently that Alice and Otto had worked out that it was actually HYDRA. HYDRA had set up an airfield in the farmland outside the town, and was using the town itself as a base for their troops and prison labor. They used the airfields to launch planes all across France, dropping devastating bombs on Allies and Nazis alike. It needed to be stopped right away.

Like General Patton kept saying, _a good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan next week._

Alice shifted uncomfortably. She'd never planned anything of this scale before.

At that moment she heard the faint buzz of a plane engine and her head jerked up. "There," she whispered to the _Maquisards_, pointing to a few dark silhouettes against the faint stars.

They hopped off their log and hustled into the trees, keeping their ears out for any sign of movement. After a few minutes of searching they found their first parachute. It was tangled in the branches, and the man attached to it had cut himself loose and was hauling it down.

The _Maquisards _lifted their weapons, but Alice pushed the barrels down and peered into the darkness. "Dernier?" she guessed.

"_Oui, c'est moi_!" called back the exuberant Frenchman, and then a moment later seemed to recall that he needed to provide a codeword. "_Botanique_!"

Alice smiled and strode forward to embrace Dernier, slightly relieved that they'd found him first - the native French seemed to put the _Maquisards _at ease. "_Venez, trouvons les autres_." [_Come, let's find the others_].

As Dernier effusively greeted Alice's fellow _Maquisards _they made their way through the forest, collecting members of Steve's team: Dugan, Gabe, Morita, Falsworth all greeted Alice with a wide smile and a friendly word. Then they finally found Bucky and Steve, who looked wet. They carried a dripping parachute-wrapped package between them.

"The weapons drop landed in the river," Bucky scowled. "Hey, Al."

"_Bonsoir_," Alice winked. She and Steve met eyes, and something soothed in her chest. "Alright," she continued in a light French accent. "Now that we've got you all, the _Maquis _are waiting at the base of the mountain. We'll plan there." She translated quickly for Luc and Demont because she sensed their unease at the sudden switch to English.

They strode down the forested mountainside in relative silence - Steve and his team couldn't address Alice with too much familiarity, at the risk of raising questions about her cover, and they were all very aware that they were just a few miles away from a heavily-guarded HYDRA encampment.

They came to the edges of the _Maquis _camp, where the guards held them up for a moment before one of the leaders who knew Alice came up. He was middle-aged and had only one eye due to complications from a mustard gas attack in Great War, but his remaining eye held a heavy weight of suspicion as he looked at the newly arrived soldiers.

"_Ce sont__ les Américains?_" [_these are the Americans_?] he asked. Alice saw his eyes flick over Steve's uniform and shield with disdain.

"_Certains d'entre eux,_" [_Some of them_] she replied. "_Mettons-nous au travail._" [_Let's get to work_]

* * *

Everyone had a rough plan: Alice, the _Maquis, _the 107th Tactical team. Now they had to find a way to make each of these plans work together.

The first problem was the airfield: that was the most dangerous part of the HYDRA-held town, housing most of their largest weapons and machines. A few hours after dawn, a fleet of SSR and USAAF airplanes were going to bombard the airfield to take it out of the equation (Alice and Otto's intelligence confirmed that there would be no prisoners working on the airfield at that time).

But then that left the town, and the captive civilian population held within it.

They discussed their plans in the gradually lightening air, grouped around a set of maps laid out on a canvas sheet in the middle of the cmap, and it quickly became clear that the _Maquisards _thought Steve and his team were overconfident fools. In return, Steve's team were clearly cautious of the _Maquis _since most of them weren't soldiers.

Alice tried to gently guide them through it, even though at times Steve's plans made her eyebrows rise.

When they came down to planning infiltration, Dugan eyed the _Maquis _vehicles and commented: "Shame you don't have your motorbike, Cap."

Alice hid a smile. She'd seen clips of Steve's bike - she wondered when he'd learned to drive it.

She began organising infiltration groups with Orane, the _Maquis _leader, and Steve looked up from his maps.

"Al, I think you should have someone wait behind in the camp with you, just in case any HYDRA members escape in this direction-"

Orane, who'd understood enough, frowned. "_C'est son pays natal, comme nous tous. Pourquoi ne se battrait-il pas_?" [_This is his home, just like the rest of us. Why should he not fight?_]

Silence fell in the camp.

Steve met Alice's eyes, and she gave him a tight smile. She'd known it would come to this: there was no way she could facilitate this meeting and not step into the fight. She'd hoped it wouldn't come to a dramatic head like this. Maybe she should have warned Steve earlier.

"I know what I'm doing," she said grimly.

Steve and his team didn't look happy, but they knew they couldn't protest further.

"_Cela règle alors. Nous avons nos équipes_," [_Then that settles it. We have our teams_] said Orane.

Gabe translated for the rest of the team, then set his hand on the still-damp package they'd brought with them. "_Nous avons des cadeaux pour vous._" [_We have some gifts for you_].

* * *

For the next few hours before the commencement of their plans, the 107th Tactical Team distributed the SSR weapons and armor they'd brought and showed the _Maquisards _how to use them. The sun streamed into the camp now, making the clean metal glint.

As Bucky demonstrated the properties of the rifles he'd handed out to the sharpshooters, Steve handed Alice an M3 submachine gun, a Colt handgun, and an ammunition bag to strap around her belt. "You know how to use these?"

"Yes," Alice murmured, then stretched past him to grab two pouches of grenades. Steve watched her with a furrow in his brow, and when she met his eyes again she saw him valiantly trying not to express his concern. "Steve…" she pressed her lips together. "Are you going to be okay with this?"

"I can't say I'm happy about it," he sighed. "But I know you know your limits. Just…" his eyes raked over her. "Promise not to do anything crazy."

"I never do anything crazy," she smiled, and allowed herself a fleeting touch to his arm. "I leave that to you."

He huffed a laugh, then his shoulders hunched. "Hi, by the way."

"Hi," she smiled. "We always seem to forget that part."

He jerked his head at the bustle of activity in the center of the camp. "Have you… ever done anything like this before?"

"No," she said honestly. "I've never been a soldier before." She turned over the gun in her hands, which she _knew _how to use but still felt unfamiliar. She cleared her throat, and when she next spoke her voice came out strained: "Got any tips?"

She couldn't bear to look into Steve's eyes. She sensed his anxiety for her rolling off him in waves; he might have been into dozens of battles by now, but this was his first where he had the woman he loved going in with him. She wondered what that did to a person. Then she realized that she was in exactly the same boat.

Steve let out a heavy breath. "It's different for everyone. I want to tell you to keep your head down and stay out of it, but I know you won't." She looked up at that, and they shared a small smile. _You're one to talk_, she thought. "I guess… just follow your instincts. Yours have always been better than mine," he finished.

Alice's guts twisted almost painfully. She'd been ignoring it ever since she'd come out to meet the _Maquis_ during the night, but she'd had a steadily mounting storm of fear and anxiety swirling in her stomach as the hour of battle approached. She didn't know what to expect.

Otto didn't even know the extent of her plans. He knew she was here of course, but he'd probably assumed, like Steve, that Alice would stay out of the fight.

Part of her wanted to back out: she wasn't trained for this, this wasn't her job. But the larger part of her did not waver: _I signed up for whatever it took_. She couldn't pretend that she was a soldier or a born fighter, but there were people trapped and afraid in that town and she was another body to add to the rescuing forces. Just as Steve had balked at being so close to the war and being held back from fighting, Alice knew that she could not sit safe in a camp and wait for the fighting to be over.

Alice checked her watch then looked up to meet Steve's anxious, supportive gaze. "Fifteen minutes until the bombardment begins," she murmured. "We should get in position."

He nodded stiffly, glanced around, and then took a step closer. "I love you," he murmured. His eyebrows pinched together and he nodded almost unconsciously, as if holding back everything else he wanted to express. He hadn't pulled on his cowl yet, so the sun gleamed in his hair. She wanted to smooth out the furrow in his brow.

Alice took a deep breath, drawing courage from him. "I love you too."

* * *

_**~ I have been listening all your life and you  
Are almost ready ~** _


	46. Chapter Thirty Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise early update, just to keep y'all on your toes! I'm so excited to share the next few chapters with you guys, we've got some big moments coming up.
> 
> There's some language switching in this chapter, but to avoid relying too much on Google Translate, I'll mostly just mention that they're speaking another language.

**Emily Wilson: "**_**The Sirens in Homer aren't sexy. We learn nothing even about their hair – in contrast to other divine temptresses. The seduction they offer is cognitive: they claim to know everything about the war in Troy, and everything on earth. They tell the names of pain.**_"

* * *

Alice didn't see the bombs falling from the planes as the SSR began their bombardment of the HYDRA airfield. She and her team of four _Maquisards _were on the far side of town, crouched down behind an outcrop of boulders, when they heard the first droning plane engine in the distance.

"_Prêt_," [_Ready_], Alice murmured. Her eyes were on the seven HYDRA guards below them guarding a road into the town, hands on their weapons but their body language inattentive. They hadn't heard the planes. Behind them stretched the town; thirty square miles of brown-bricked roofs and white painted walls, centred around a church. Evidence of HYDRA's occupation was everywhere: there were four sturdy watchtowers erected throughout the town, barriers around the outskirts, and the occasional glint of blue glowing light in the streets.

A ricocheting _boom _cracked through the air, making even Alice flinch, followed by a successive volley of explosions. Alice didn't bother looking up - the airfield was well out of sight from here.

But the HYDRA guards they'd been watching wheeled around, shouting in alarm.

"_Allons-y!_" whispered Luc, and Alice and her team dove out from behind their boulders and fired down the hill.

The initial burst of violence was over before Alice knew it. They had the element of surprise entirely in their hands, and only one of the HYDRA guards had turned in time to get a shot off before he was struck down. His electric blue projectile sailed well over their heads. Alice's fingers tingled from the recoil of her gun, and her ears rang with the sound.

She didn't have time to think about the shots she'd fired, or the men they'd hit, because her team now raced down the hill toward the town. They clambered over the barbed wire and metal barricades with some difficulty, and then they were on an empty cobblestoned road. The air echoed with continued explosions from the airfield, and when she glanced up Alice saw a pillar of smoke rising into the sky. She heard a closer _crash_, and guessed that the closest _Maquis _team had managed to ram their vehicle through the blockades onto a street the next block over.

Alice and her team ran down the street and then turned east, watching the buildings for signs of movement. They had no idea which would be occupied. A minute in, a HYDRA guard burst out of a townhouse to their left, gun raised. The man to Alice's left shot him dead before she could even react. Her breath hitched in her throat.

They forged on, picking off the HYDRA soldiers who burst out of their stolen lodgings.

What seemed like seconds later, her team had pushed their way east onto the main street of town. Alice had already changed her magazine once, and she'd taken more lives than she had ever before. She'd somehow forgotten how it felt, in the heat and noise of the moment.

The main street had devolved into carnage. Vehicles churned up and down it, and HYDRA and _Maquis _were everywhere. Bullets and blasts of blue light shredded the air. Alice spotted Steve at the far end, crouched on the hood of the HYDRA truck he and his team had ambushed outside of town, using his shield to deflect projectiles as he fired unerringly at the HYDRA soldiers around him. Dugan, at the wheel of the truck, mowed down the HYDRA barricades.

_Oh no_, Alice thought as she swept a frantic gaze around at the pandemonium, _I really shouldn't be here._

Luc shoved her shoulder sideways. "_Venez, la tour de guet!_" [_Come, the watch tower!_] he shouted over the noise.

"_Oui_," Alice breathed, and she and her team dove across the street. Alice lifted her gun, sighted the strange dark uniforms of HYDRA, and fired. Things whistled and blasted around her, and she yelped when she almost tripped over a fallen man - HYDRA or _Maquis_, she didn't know - but then suddenly she was on the other side, pressing into a narrow alley between buildings.

She glanced around, found her team and the other team which had joined them around her, and then pressed on. Alice's feet pounded across the cobblestones, jarring her joints. She realized her mouth was hanging open, and shut it with a _snap._

At the end of the alleyway they sensed movement in a shop building to their right, and everyone in Alice's team swung their weapons up. But then a child's face appeared in the window.

"_Sortez!_" [_Come out_!] cried one of the men in Alice's team, his voice cracking with adrenaline. "_Nous sommes là pour vous aider__!_" [_We are here to help_!]

The door cracked open, and Alice got a general impression of fearful, wide-eyed faces and shabby clothes.

"_Dépêchez-vous_," [_Hurry_] Alice urged. Her throat felt so dry. "_Vous devez courir vers le sud, tout de suite, et vous cacher dans la forêt._" [_You have to run south, right away, and hide in the forest_].

Far too slowly, the civilians hiding inside crept out of the door, their eyes darting everywhere and flinching at every blast and gunshot. There were seven of them: a family, if Alice had to guess. Her skin itched.

"_Dépêchez-vous_!" [_Hurry up_!] shouted another man, and suddenly the whole family took off running, the child in its mother's arms. Alice thought of Tom, bizarrely, and then shook away the thought.

Alice realized that her limbs felt like jelly. Luc gave a command, and they took off running in a different direction to the family: continuing east towards the sturdy metal spire of the watchtower.

Alice had been a part of the war for four years, but she'd never seen battle like this. What had once been lines moving on a map became her breath burning in her lungs as she and her fellow soldiers chased a pair of HYDRA soldiers down a street. She'd seen the aftermath of battle before but it was different to actually see the bullets tearing holes in the walls, to see the blue HYDRA weapons blasting whatever they hit into ashes. Alice wondered if it would hurt.

Alice had been shot at before, but only ever in brief bursts of violence. This was protracted, and the pace of battle seemed to churn slower and slower as HYDRA coordinated themselves against the attack. Every corner she turned led to another volley of bullets. The air was so loud with explosions and bullets for so long, but she never got used to it.

Time seemed to drip sluggishly, like dreams of running with her legs trapped in mud, then raced forward as if someone were spinning a film reel through, trying to get to the end of the movie.

And yet Alice kept her head. She'd known countless instances of cold danger before: a pair of suspicious eyes staring her down; hiding behind a door and holding her breath so the Gestapo couldn't hear her, exchanging a coded message right under the eyes of a watchful general. In each situation, as now, she had been terribly, terribly afraid, so scared that she thought her guts would liquify and tears would spring from her eyes. Bu Alice knew how to use fear to do what she needed to do.

So she knew that even if she ended up blasted into atoms, she wouldn't lose her cool. It was a relief in a way, to know that her own mind and body wouldn't betray her.

She allowed herself to feel fear for Steve, Bucky and the rest of them, somewhere out there in the chaos, but she did not let it distract her.

A HYDRA soldier burst out behind her team with a flamethrower, and Alice squeezed her trigger twice. The soldier fell back in a blast of fire.

"_Bien visé!_" [_Good shot_!] cried Luc, and she nodded.

They reached the next intersection, where they were supposed to meet with some of the 107th before they moved on the watchtower. It was relatively quiet here, so they waited nervously for what felt like an eternity as the sounds of gunfire grew closer. Alice wiped her sleeve over her forehead, and it came away drenched.

Finally they heard approaching footsteps, and Falsworth, Gabe, and a handful of _maquisards _ran up out of a nearby alley. Alice let out a breath and stepped out to face them.

"Alright," Falsworth called slightly breathlessly. "Let's" - Alice saw his eyes widen, focused somewhere behind her, and her heart dropped - "_cover!_"

Alice dove toward the closest building without looking behind her to see what had filled Falsworth's eyes with so much fear. She skinned her hands as she fell behind the front terrace of a home, and half a second later the brick by her face exploded, sparking hundreds of pinpricks of pain across her cheek.

Then the _boom _of whatever had shot at her registered in her ears and shuddered in her chest. Alice huddled behind the brick terrace for a moment, breathless, then peeked around the corner.

A whole HYDRA troop had emerged at the other end of the street, marching beside a pair of trucks with complicated-looking cannons mounted atop them. Alice saw the _maquisard _who'd complimented her aim lying dead in the road, and her stomach heaved.

The HYDRA trucks shot another volley of blue light which seared Alice's retinas before she jerked back behind her cover. She heard an explosion further down the street.

She looked across the cobbled road and spotted Falsworth. He was huddled in the doorway of what looked like an inn, pulling a flare gun out of a sling on his belt as he peered at the oncoming HYDRA troops.

_Right. _Alice remembered this part of the plan: each of the 107th Tactical Team had a flare gun to alert the others when they found a concentration of HYDRA troops. She wondered where everyone else was. But she knew that either way, she and whoever else was left would have to keep attacking the troops to hold them here. She cradled her gun to her chest and craned her neck, spotting a few of the _maquisards _hiding in the alleyway further down. She couldn't see Gabe - he must be hiding somewhere ahead of her.

She sensed Falsworth's eyes on her and turned to meet his steady gaze. He tapped his flare gun grimly, then pointed at her, then behind her. She followed his finger to see a shattered window just above her, leading into the dark house. She glanced back at Falsworth. He gestured upwards, then tapped his gun and pointed up the road again.

Alice nodded, breathless. Her neck was starting to ache from her awkward position behind the terrace. She watched Falsworth gesture his plan to whoever else he could see from his position, as a few more blue cannon shots streaked down the road and the sound of rolling tyres crunched closer.

Falsworth aimed his flare gun at the sky, squinting, and then fired. In the same moment Alice clambered to her feet and hurled herself through the window, trying to avoid the broken glass. Gunfire and cannon blasts exploded behind her but she was already running for the set of wooden stairs she could see. She sprinted to the top floor of the third story building, then scurried toward the window facing out on the street.

Even in the bright daylight, the red flare now burning in the sky made the whole top floor of the house glow scarlet. She crawled toward the window, mostly covered by the stone bulk of the wall, then propped her elbow on her knee and peered downward.

The HYDRA troops were almost right below her, firing in every direction in a flurry of electric blue. Alice watched as most of them aimed into the inn which Falsworth now fired from, then stuck her submachine barrel out the window and squeezed the trigger.

Alice sprayed bullets down on the HYDRA soldiers until she saw a gun barrel point her way, and scrambled backwards. Blue light erupted in the window, shattering part of the ceiling and raining down plaster. Alice's heart felt like it was pounding in her throat.

She waited a few moments, then scurried to a different window. She could see dead HYDRA soldiers on the ground. The trucks were still in one piece, though. She fumbled one of the grenades out of the pouch on her belt, pulled the pin and then dropped it limply onto the road.

She leaned back, eyes squeezed shut, and the building shook when the grenade went off. She reappeared in the window to get a look at her handiwork, only to flinch back again as the rear-most truck flipped up onto its front wheels, the back half having just been disintegrated by a massive blue blast. Her mouth dropped, then she looked down the street to see Bucky with a HYDRA cannon propped against his shoulder.

She glanced back down, gasping for breath, just as a red, white, and blue shield suddenly sliced into the other truck's cannon with a shriek of metal. Steve himself appeared a few moments later, running so fast he was hard to keep track of. He leaped up onto the truck, yanked his shield free, then pivoted down to slam the metal disc into one of the HYDRA soldiers.

Emboldened, Alice propped her elbow on the window ledge and sighted the remaining soldiers, picking them off with two shots each to the chest. She could sense the others in their buildings and hiding spots doing the same. At one point she thought Steve was looking up into her window, but when she looked his way again he was sliding between a pair of HYDRA soldiers.

A moment later Steve was gone again, barrelling away with his shield and his athletic flips and devastating blows. Alice got shakily to her feet and ran downstairs and out onto the street, almost colliding with Bucky. He was sprinting after Steve, but stopped in his tracks at the sight of her.

"You're not hurt?" he panted.

She shook her head, unable to speak.

He jerked his head after Steve. "There's another flare, we've gotta-"

"Go," Alice breathed. "Take these." She ducked down, grabbed a few HYDRA grenades, and handed them to him. She could see the blackened scorch mark between the trucks where her own grenade had detonated.

"Thanks," Bucky said, then took off after Steve.

Alice regrouped her team - they'd lost two members, but now they had Falsworth and Gabe's team for backup. Gabe gave her a shaky smile.

"_Continuons vers la tour!_" [_Let's continue to the tower_!] she called, her throat aching from smoke.

With a rustle of readjusted weapons, they set off at a run.

* * *

The fight for the town continued through the rest of the day. HYDRA had well and truly entrenched themselves in this town, with all kinds of weapons and vehicles. They had to painstakingly clear each street and block, ushering the civilian prisoners to safety wherever they could.

Alice's team brought down the watchtower at noon with a combination of SSR and HYDRA explosives.

They got a moment's reprieve at midafternoon when they paused to drink from the town well, which the _Maquis _had secured a few hours earlier. Alice's fingers shook as she drank from the bucket, and she ended up sloshing most of the water down her front.

She saw flashes of Steve and his team throughout the day - Steve was a blur of color and power wherever he went, slamming past obstacles that took the rest of them half a dozen men and half an hour to overcome. Bucky was never far, sniping from the rooftops or plunging headfirst into the action wherever he was needed. The others were a riotous mess of bullets and battlecries, spurring on the _Maquis _and engaging in feats of foolhardy bravery that made Alice's heart skip.

At dusk, Alice and a few _Maquisards _were clearing the surrounds of the church when an ominous mechanical whirring sound filled the air. Alice paused, swivelling to locate the noise, and her gaze landed on a warehouse a few streets away. HYDRA's forces had been retreating to that warehouse for some time, and the 107th Tactical Team had been planning to hit it soon. Were its walls _vibrating_?

The whirring grew to a new pitch, and with a sudden _crash _the whole front of the warehouse splintered to pieces. Alice spotted a glint of metal and the whirring noise registered in her brain as a massive engine, and-

Alice's mouth fell open and she staggered back as sunlight hit the thing that had burst out of the town warehouse. It was a tank: an enormous one, as large as the warehouse it had just rolled out of and taller than the surrounding houses. Its cannon was the size of a tree trunk and its treads could have easily mown down four men standing abreast. With an awful metallic creaking it rolled out onto the street and directly toward the houses standing before it, gun turrets swivelling.

With a deep whine that sounded bizarrely like an orchestra of out-of-key violins the cannon shot a blindingly bright blast of blue light, which blasted apart the building in front of the tank. The tank rolled straight into the debris, crunching roof beams and foundation stones beneath its massive treads.

"_Run_!" someone shouted, and Alice's legs unstuck themselves. She started sprinting just as the tank started firing. The ground shuddered and spewed upwards in a fount of brick and dirt a few feet beside her, sending her stumbling, but she didn't stop. She ran as fast and as far from the Uber tank as she could, her fear reaching a level that she hadn't thought possible.

The tank turned and rolled down the main street, firing massive blue blasts that demolished everything before it. People screamed and scattered before it.

Alice paused now that she was no longer in the firing line, her gun limp in her fingers, and peered through the rising smoke after the tank. _How are we supposed to stop something like that_?

The answer came in a flash of movement on the rooftops. Alice looked up to Steve sprinting along the tiled rooves of the main street, leaping from one to another as he chased the tank. On the ground, Falsworth ducked out of a side alley behind the tank and began running toward it.

Alice took stumbling steps toward them.

Steve came level with the tank and leaped deftly onto it, his shield flashing in the setting sun. Alice started running. Steve swung his shield down at the hatch on top of the tank, yanked it open, then seized the HYDRA soldier who sprang out of it and tossed him aside. The man crumpled to the ground below. At that moment Falsworth tossed an explosives package upwards in an impressive underarm swing. Steve plucked the package out of the air and swung it into the open hatch at the top of the tank.

Alice's heart stopped.

But in the same lightning-fast rhythm as he'd appeared, Steve took a running start and leaped off the massive tank, legs windmilling in the air. The moment his boots left the metal a concussive roar erupted into the air and flame burst from every seam and crevice of the tank.

Alice had to stop and shield her eyes from the searing blast, and a moment later the force of it knocked her backwards. She tumbled head over heels, overwhelmed by heat and noise, and came to a skidding halt on her knees. She blinked away the afterimage of the explosion and looked up in desperate search of Steve.

She couldn't see anything - bright flames licked up the buildings around the rent-open carcass of the tank, but a moment later even that awe-inspiring image was blocked out by the thick smoke that billowed out across the town.

Alice scrambled to her feet and ran into the lung-tarring smoke. "Steve!" she called. She knew that he was made of stronger stuff these days, but he'd just fallen almost four stories with flames right at his heels… "_Steve_!" she coughed.

She skirted around a burning, melted chunk of metal, and then tripped. On her hands and knees she glanced over her shoulder to see what she'd tripped on - a pair of blue-clad legs in brown boots. For a moment her heart stopped, but then the legs moved as their owner got to his feet, his shield still fastened to his arm.

Alice looked up at Steve as he stood with the smoke billowing around him, ash on his face and a wild grin on his mouth. And she saw, finally, the man who made HYDRA so afraid.

Steve looked down, spotted Alice, and his eyes widened. He started forward to help her to her feet.

"Are you okay?" he asked. Besides the billowing flames and groaning metal of the destroyed tank, it was relatively quiet.

"I'm not the one who just jumped off a tank," she laughed, coughing as she did so.

Steve reeled her in then, a quick one-armed squeeze, and pressed his lips to her forehead. A strangely soft gesture for the middle of a battlefield.

"C'mon," he said. "I reckon that was the last of them. Now we've just got to clean up."

* * *

Facebook Post dated 22 April 2011, on page _Battle Tactics of History_:

_Day 22 of Analyzing Howling Commandos tactical campaigns: the Siege of Soives_

_And today we're discussing one of the soundest and cleanest victories for the 107th Tactical Team. It took them less than 12 hours to surround, assault, and completely occupy an entire town, miles and miles behind enemy lines. This was achieved mostly with backup from the SSR Air Division, who destroyed HYDRA's main airfield, and through seamless integration with the local (notoriously difficult-to-work-with) Maquis group. _

_The members of the Maquis later said that a local Résistance agent put them in touch with the Howling Commandos for this mission, which makes sense since the SSR was closely allied with the _ _Résistance. _

_In Soives, Captain Rogers took down an Uber tank with assistance from his men - this was not Rogers' first time facing the monster tanks, and doubtless he knew the best way to stop them in their tracks._

_This is another excellent example of how in the French campaign, the Howling Commandos had really honed their style - surprise attacks backed up with sound intelligence, fire power, and expertise, completely overwhelming HYDRA's forces._

* * *

Cleaning up, apparently, meant looting the HYDRA facilities for all they were worth, and convincing the scattered prisoners that it was safe to return. The surviving fighters congregated in the town square by the half-destroyed church, clapping each other on the shoulders and allowing themselves to grieve for the friends they'd lost.

It was chaos: everyone scrambled over shattered buildings and tried to find each other in the smoke. Bodies were strewn amongst the wreckage. The remaining dredges of HYDRA had fled into the forest.

They knew they had at least a few hours before the Germans came looking since they avoided HYDRA territory mostly, and they had enough problems elsewhere to worry about this town.

Gradually, all the prisoners who'd fled returned to the town square. Some were civilians who'd lived in the town before HYDRA came, and they wanted to stay, but had to be convinced to leave. The likelihood that HYDRA or the Nazis might retaliate against civilians left behind was too great. Others had family elsewhere they could go to. There were also a handful of POWs and other prisoners with nowhere to go, who needed extraction.

Alice made these huddled, scared people her focus. She helped Gabe translate, confirmed people's stories, and tried to figure out the logistics of transport for the evacuees to the makeshift airfield the _Maquis _were clearing to the east. The SSR were sending in a few extraction planes at staggered times throughout the night, but they couldn't hold this position for long.

She made her way through the huddled civilians, keeping warmth and reassurance in her voice despite the exhaustion settling in her bones. She'd bound up a wound in her forearm from clambering over jagged glass, and taped gauze over another embarrassing gash right on her behind. She was pretty sure from the stinging on her left cheek and the alarmed looks that Steve had been shooting her that she had dozens of tiny cuts on the side of her face from shrapnel, too (luckily, she thought distantly, she didn't have any performances booked for over a week).

But she'd made it through alive. She could hardly believe it.

She finished confirming with a small family that they could make their own way east to Moulins, when a young woman who'd just staggered into the square seized her arm.

Alice tensed, her nerves shot from the battle, but then she saw the desperate look in the woman's eye.

"Please," the woman said in hurried French, "My sister and her family, they're hiding in the small village ten miles from here. You have to help them-"

Alice frowned. "If they're safe where they are, they should stay. This land will be freed soon enough."

"No, you don't understand." The young woman lowered her voice. "We are Jewish. My sister, her husband, and their children have been hiding in the local parish church for a year, but the _Milice _found out about them three days ago and they've been trying to extort them for money but they have nothing. I'm sure the _Milice _will send the Gestapo after them. I haven't been able to help them, please-"

"Okay, okay," Alice said, gripping the woman's arm to calm her. Dugan, who was taking names a few yards away, looked up with a frown. "I understand. Let me…" she thought furiously for a moment, her thoughts like frayed and tangled wool in her mind. "Where exactly is this village?"

* * *

_**~ I cannot recreate your life, no matter how I try,  
but I hope that you like the fruit I have sown.  
They are mine, for no other could have plucked such bright seeds. ~** _

* * *

When Alice appeared at Steve's elbow a minute later, he gave her a relieved smile. Night had well and truly fallen, so the still-burning fires and a few gas lamps the _Maquis _had brought were the only light available to see by.

"Hi," Steve smiled. "So the first plane's due in forty minutes, we're going to get the families with children on that one. Also the _Maquis_ say they won't evacuate, I've tried to convince them it's too dangerous but-"

"We won't convince them to leave," Alice said. She'd realized that before they'd even begun the battle. "But Steve, there's something else." She quickly relayed what the young woman in the square had told her, and produced the map of the area where the young woman had pointed out the tiny, unnamed village.

Steve's mouth turned down as he looked at the map. "The last plane's leaving here at dawn, and there's German roadblocks all along the way."

Alice bit her lip. "The _Maquis _could draw away the roadblocks? Cause a distraction?" Even as she said it, she knew that they were far too busy here to start more trouble elsewhere.

Steve looked doubtful. "For how long?"

But Alice was determined now. "No, we can do it. Hell, _I'll _do it - it'll be easier that way. I can travel through the woods on foot here" - she pointed at the map - "and avoid the roadblocks that way. It'll shorten the journey too. I'll get to the village, get the family, and…" she thought. "I'll wait for the _Maquis _to be ready to divert the roadblocks, say an hour or so before dawn, then take a vehicle and drive the family back. Then my way will be clear back here, and the family can get on the last plane."

Steve looked steadily more frantic as she spoke, but she could also see his gaze drawn back to that little pencil-circled dot on the map. He ran a hand over his face. "Fine." He looked up. "But I'm coming with you."

Alice's mouth dropped open. "They need you here, Steve-"

"HYDRA's been taken out, Dum-Dum and Bucky can handle the extraction procedures. I'm coming with you."

"But-"

"Alice," he said. "Please."

They stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, Alice nodded.

* * *

No one seemed very happy about the plan Alice and Steve had cooked up. Bucky ground his jaw as they explained, but he could see that they were set on it. He and Dugan agreed to run the cleanup and extraction procedures, and Alice got Orane the _Maquis _leader to agree to set up a distraction to draw away the roadblocks a few hours before dawn (he seemed very eager to inconvenience not just HYDRA, but the Nazis too).

As they arranged all this Alice found Lisette, the young woman who'd pulled her aside in the first place, and gave her a nod. Lisette's eyes welled with tears.

With a few parting instructions, Alice and Steve set off into the woods north of the still-smoking town. As they left the warm chaos of the town for the cool, dark forest, Alice's aches and pains made themselves known. She'd left her submachine gun behind but still carried a handgun on her belt, and her usual field knife.

Night had stolen over the countryside, startlingly quiet after the ear-splitting chaos of the day. Alice focused on her own steady breaths, and Steve's footsteps in the underbrush.

A few minutes into their walk they heard the buzz of a plane overhead. Alice and Steve froze, listening. Alice knew the sounds of the different planes in the French skies by now, and she knew this was no Allied engine.

"Too light to be bombers," Steve murmured, his head cocked. "Too few to be an attack. Must be reconnaissance."

Alice nodded silently. The Germans probably wanted to work out what the hell had happened at the HYDRA camp. She knew for a fact their troops were too far to do anything about it for now though.

They walked on through the forest. It grew harder to see as the darkness grew thicker, and Alice stumbled a few times.

"Are you alright?" Steve asked, knowing full well that she wasn't.

"My legs aren't as committed as I am," Alice sighed. She was bone tired, but still managed to summon a smile. "How do you feel about carrying me on your back like a koala?"

"Okay," Steve said seriously.

For half a second Alice seriously considered it, but then she shook her head, laughing. "No," she chuckled, "No, I don't think my dignity is quite ready for that."

Steve shrugged, smiling. "I wouldn't tell anyone."

Alice eyed him. "But aren't you tired? You… I've never seen you fight before, really, and today was... You must be exhausted."

He let out a breath and held back a branch that Alice hadn't seen. "I am tired, but it… doesn't affect me the way it used to. I used to get so tired that I couldn't keep my eyes open, but after the serum, if I want to keep going, I just… I can."

"I don't know if it's all serum," Alice said. "You've always been so…" He glanced over at her as she searched for the words, and something about the light in his eyes made her say: "stubborn."

He laughed. "Maybe so. But now my body _lets _me be stubborn."

Each word and each laugh had something in Alice's chest easing - the heavy dread and trauma of the battle still clung to her like a shroud, but it felt easier to carry now.

"You fought well today," Steve said in a quieter voice.

Alice hunched her shoulders. "I got through it. And how do you know anyway? You didn't see me. I could've been hiding in the corner the whole time."

"I saw you." The heaviness in his voice reflected the echoes of his fear, and Alice leaned closer so that her arm brushed his in the darkness.

They followed Steve's compass north through the forest, crossing a narrow stream, until they came to the village.

Alice didn't even know if the collection of buildings before them could really call itself a village: there were ten small cottages, a garage, and a tiny church, with a stream bubbling through the middle of it all. It'd be charming, Alice imagined, if she didn't feel like she had to keep one eye on the starry sky on the lookout for fighter planes.

Alice and Steve waited in the forest for a few moments, watching the village. All the windows were dark, and there was no sign of movement.

"This could be a trap," Alice murmured. She had trusted the look of desperation in Lisette's eyes, but anything was possible.

"Why do you think I came?" Steve murmured back.

Alice sighed. "One way to find out."

They crept out of the forest, skirting past quiet cottages until they came to the little stone dwelling built into the side of the church.

Steve reached out to knock softly on the door.

At first Alice thought that their knock had gone unheard, but after a minute went by she heard a snatch of whispered voices. She and Steve shared a glance. Then she heard footsteps creaking on wood, and a moment later the wooden door inched open to reveal a man in his mid-fifties, with a receding hairline and crooked glasses. He peered through the cracked door at the strangers on his doorstep and his eyes widened.

Alice felt a sudden burst of empathy for him: he couldn't have missed hearing the ongoing explosions in the distance throughout the day, and now he'd been roused out of his sleep by strangers.

"What do you want?" the man asked in nervous French.

Alice met his eyes. "We were sent by Lisette."

His eyes widened further and the door creaked open a little more.

"We can help, but it has to be tonight," Steve said, and Alice blinked. She'd almost forgotten that he spoke some French. "Will you let us in?"

The man - the pastor of this small church, Alice guessed - ran an assessing gaze over the two of them. They must have looked a sight, soot-covered and bandaged. But after a moment he nodded decisively. "Come in." He stepped back and held the door wide.

Alice followed Steve in, and couldn't see much of the dwelling from behind him as it was that small. They'd found themselves in a kitchen/dining room, the walls plastered over and with a small window looking in the direction of the small stream. The only light inside was the pastor's single candle and the faint moonlight through the window.

Alice's attention snagged on movement at the other end of the dwelling, and her gaze locked on a woman: the same age as the pastor, probably his wife. She wore a nightdress and a terrified expression.

In pieced-together French, Alice and Steve explained the situation, and the pastor's wife's terror simmered into something like fearful excitement. She and her husband exchanged a glance, then nodded.

The pastor, who introduced himself as Jean, lead Alice and Steve through a side door into the nave of the church. Alice imagined it would be quite charming during the day, but with no light aside from the candle it seemed cold and eerie.

As the pastor and his wife strode up the aisle, Alice peered around. She spotted the dull glimmer of a single stained glass window at the far end, two rows of narrow pews crammed around the aisle, and engravings of scripture on the walls. A large board hung by the entrance, with what Alice thought must be a register of the congregation. The church was no larger than Matthias's tailor shop back in Brooklyn. Alice and Steve's arms brushed as they walked up the aisle.

They reached the pulpit, where a single wooden cross stood on the fabric-draped altar beside a vase of field flowers. A baptism basin was pushed into the corner.

Then the pastor started pushing the altar, so Steve stepped forward to add his muscle. The altar slid away to reveal a wooden trap door. Alice's eyebrows rose. The pastor knocked on the door five times, and a second later it pushed up from below.

A man in his thirties rose out of the dark hole in the floor. He wore a heavy woolen coat, and under his unkempt hair his eyes were wide and fearful. His gaze wheeled around, taking in the strangers, and Alice could practically smell his fear spike.

"It's alright," said the pastor gently. "They're here to get you to safety."

"Safety?" echoed the man. He had hungry eyes.

"England." Alice's voice echoed in the church, and the man turned to her. "Lisette sent us to get you."

The other half of the trapdoor burst up, and Alice was met with an echo of the women she'd met in the burning town. This woman was a little older and her hair a little darker, but she had the same glimmering eyes and pointed nose. "Lisette?" she exclaimed. "Is she alright?"

Alice nodded. With both doors open she could see into the basement below the altar; it was no wider than the church, and too shallow to properly stand up in. It was lined with bedding. She could see the children now: a boy of around ten, eyes bleary with sleep, a toddler clutching his mother's knee, and an infant sleeping in a wooden box lined with empty produce sacks. Beside Alice, Steve shifted.

"She's safe," Alice reassured Lisette's sister. "Listen, we can get you on a plane at dawn, but we can't leave here until four AM. You have some time to prepare your things."

The husband and wife shared a glance. "Okay," said Lisette's sister. "Okay, we… we'll get the children ready, pack our things." She climbed out of the basement with the ease of practice.

Her husband still seemed wild-eyed. "We can really leave?" he looked to the pastor.

The pastor nodded. His eyes gleamed with tears. "Yes. You're going to be safe, Georg."

Georg fell back against the edge of the basement, letting out a breath. His hand settled on the back of his toddler's head, who looked up at her father with sleepy, trusting eyes. "My god."

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Secret Defiance: The French Civilians Who Hid their Jewish Friends and Neighbours' _by Basil Holloway (1994)

_... from the very beginning of the invasion in 1940, written record and local memory in France tells us of hundreds of individual cases of communities coming together to protect their Jewish members. From the beginning the Nazi occupiers made their intent to remove all Jews very clear, and in response civilians opened their homes, attics, barns, and basements to Jewish friends, neighbours, and acquaintances. This protective spirit could be seen all over Europe during the war. _

_In the town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, under the direction of the local Protestant minister, hundreds of villagers hid Jews in their homes and farms in direct defiance of the Nazi occupiers. When Gestapo came to the town, the Jewish fugitives hid in the mountainside. It's estimated that in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, over three thousand Jews were saved from death._

_In 1990, the entire town was recognized with the "Righteous Among the Nations" award at the Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust in Israel. Many other rescuers who risked their lives to protect Jews in the Holocaust have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. The award comes with an honorary Israel citizenship, and a plaque on the Wall of Honor in Israel. _

* * *

Alice and Steve found themselves getting in the way of the rapidly-preparing family, so with a few words to the pastor and his wife they stepped out the back door and sat down in the grass.

Alice let out a heavy breath, thinking of Jilí and Franz and how they'd hid themselves away like that family, but it hadn't been enough.

"They've been living in that hole a _year,_" she breathed. She glanced down and found herself tearing up stalks of grass.

Steve nodded slowly as he set his shield down beside him, his eyes heavy. "C'mere."

She scooted across to where he'd sat against the back of the church, and let him drape an arm around her. They leaned together, warm in the night.

Alice sighed. The air was dark, wind rustled through the trees in the forest behind the church, and the grass under her fingers glistened with dew. This place felt calm and strange after the violence of the day.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

She listened to Steve's breath rise and fall in his chest. "I was thinking about how I used to get so angry at people for not… caring enough, or doing enough, in this war. That's why I wanted to get over here so bad. But now I'm here, all I see is people trying to do the right thing. Like that pastor and his wife." He nodded back at the church. "They must have Nazis driving past their church every day, and they've kept that family safe all this time."

Alice let out a long breath. "They're not the only ones."

He held her tighter. "That's what I think about when I see how bad things can get out here. When I see what HYDRA's willing to do to people."

A long silence passed. There were slight sounds of movement from the church behind them.

"I'm worried I won't know who I am," Alice said out of the blue. She swallowed at the sudden strike of honesty that had hit her. "Without the war."

Steve drew her closer. "You and me both." He dropped a kiss into her hair. "Promise we'll figure it out together?"

"Promise."

A few moments of silence passed. Then Alice's stomach growled, and they both laughed. Their conversation turned to lighter things after that. After a few minutes they heard the front door of the pastor's house swing open, and peeked around the corner to see the little family bustling across the grass to the nearby house. The pastor stepped out after them, looked back to see Steve and Alice watching, and strode up the length of the church towards them.

"They have spent their lives in this village," he said softly. "They wish to say goodbye to their friends."

Alice nodded. If the village had kept their secret for this long, she wasn't worried about them saying goodbye.

The pastor pulled his woolen nightgown around himself tighter and frowned down at them. He'd straightened his glasses but his hair was still slightly unkempt from being roused so late. Alice had never known her grandparents, but this is what she'd always pictured: a kindly old face with concern and care in his eyes (though from what her uncle had told her, she'd put together that her real grandparents had been assholes).

"Are you two alright?" the pastor asked. "You mentioned the battle in town, do you have any injuries?"

"We're okay," Alice said with a tired smile. Steve nodded, but then Alice's stomach growled again.

The pastor's lips quirked. "I'll get you something to eat."

"Oh, we couldn't-"

"Stay," he said, holding out a quelling hand. "I'll bring you some food."

As the pastor strode back to his dwelling, Steve glanced at Alice. "So I'm getting the feeling that this _isn't _a trap."

She smiled, then prodded his shoulder. "I'm still glad you came."

The pastor's wife soon returned with two bowls of steaming porridge and half a loaf of bread.

"Let us know if you need anything else, alright?" she pressed. "You look like you've had a hard day. And there's still six hours before you'll have to leave, by my count - if you'd like a sleep, you can use our bed."

Alice and Steve thanked the woman, then tucked in hungrily to the food. Steve wolfed his down before Alice had got through half of hers, and she glanced up to see him looking contemplatively back at the church.

"What?" she mumbled through her porridge.

He glanced back and shrugged one shoulder, half-smiling. "Good people."

"Good people," Alice agreed. She swallowed. "Not as rare as you might think, these days."

"They oughta be the ones getting the medals."

Alice nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe one day, they will be."

As they ate, their moods lifted and their conversation expanded beyond the war. Steve told Alice everything he'd heard from Tom since he left Brooklyn, and the news of other people they'd known in school.

Steve had taken off his cowl and gloves, and Alice found herself pointing at various parts of his uniform (the strap over his chest, the individual compartments on his belt) and asking _what's that? _He had an answer for all of it, but seemed to grow steadily more amused so she kept asking.

"I have to admit the uniform took me aback when I first saw it," Alice laughed as she tapped her knuckles against the cowl in her hands. Steve rolled his eyes. "But it does grow on you. Stars and all."

"Well I'm very glad to hear it's earned the Alice seal of approval."

Alice made a gesture of stamping a seal on the forehead of the cowl. "What made you decide to go with this design?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. I'd been marching across stages in something kinda similar, I guess I wanted to show that it could be… more than that."

"A symbol," Alice said with her chin in her hand.

"I suppose." He shrugged. "And I also feel like the uniform, when I was wearing it in that base in Austria, it got those men to listen to me. Felt like I could use some of that."

Alice smiled. "I don't think it was the uniform that did it."

Steve scratched the back of his neck, obviously uncomfortable. "I wonder how the guys are doing back at the town," he changed the subject. "The first plane should've left by now."

"It should have," Alice agreed. "I think they'll be fine, the Wehrmacht won't want to go near the area until they're sure no HYDRA weapons will be used against them, and the _Maquis_ are friendly enough at least with Dernier. No doubt they'll be cooking up some larger-than-necessary distraction to clear the road blocks."

Steve smiled at the thought. "Did I ever tell you about the time with the goat?"

"I… no?"

Steve then went on to regale Alice with some of the more bizarre missions he and his team had pulled off, and in return she told him some of the sillier things that had happened in her work with the Resistance; as serious and deadly as it all was, there was always something to laugh at.

As Steve doubled over laughing at her story about how Vano, Jilí's cousin, had got a German general to leave Vienna early by leaving rotten fish in his office drawers for a week, Alice leaned back on her hands.

"I've missed this," she smiled. "We haven't had _time _in a while."

"Who knew all it would take would be a few German roadblocks and a rescue mission?" Steve quipped. He leaned forward, hand outstretched, and Alice took it. "I've missed this too."

"I feel like this war has been my whole life," Alice sighed. "But everything seems to move so quickly - time, people, life."

"Life does move quickly," he agreed. "People doing wild things because they don't want to waste any time. I reckon there'll be loads of babies born during this war."

Alice laughed. "And people get married based on nothing! Heidi, my stylist, she married this Polish Resistance fellow after they went on _one _date. They're not even in the same country most of the time." She held up her porridge spoon. "_And _one of my backup singers quit after marrying a man she'd met the week before. She's pregnant now."

"Same on our side," Steve chuckled. "There've been half a dozen soldiers who've married French women they barely know. Even people back in Brooklyn were doing it too. Buck's sister Ruth wants to get engaged to this kid who works at her office, and they've only known each other for four months. Whereas you and I have known each other what, fifteen years?"

Alice chuckled softly and opened her mouth to reply, but like a slowly breaking wave, they both subsided into silence. It was as if their voices had been stolen. She and Steve stared at each other, eyes wide.

In the darkness, Alice felt a smile pulling at her lips. And then, slowly, she watched a glint flicker to life in Steve's eyes.


	47. Chapter Thirty Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s not on the playlist (yet) but I recommend listening to “By Night” by Sophie Hutchings for this first part. (Also, this first ‘article’ by Emily Yellin is real)

_**There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of** _

_ **Longing, the lover's whisper, irresistible —** _

_ **magic to make the sanest man go mad.** _

– **Homer, **_**The Iliad**_

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Lining Up for Wartime Weddings_', in _the New York Times_, by Emily Yellin (2 February 2017):

_In 1942 alone, 1.8 million weddings took place, up 83 percent from 10 years before. And two-thirds of those brides were marrying men newly enlisted in the military._

* * *

It took the pastor and his wife a few moments to get used to the fact that Alice was a woman, and then several more to understand what she and Steve were asking. "_Now?_" they kept repeating, bewildered. Alice and Steve stood before them, hand in hand, trying to rationally explain through their matching grins.

When the pastor and his wife finally understood, their eyes lit up.

After very little fuss (and after a few vows of secrecy, which from their grave expressions Alice believed wholeheartedly would go with the pastor and his wife to their graves), Alice and Steve found themselves standing together before the church altar once more.

They hadn't prepared. Alice had yanked off her cap and cleaned the ash and dried blood off her face, and Steve had removed his cowl and gloves, but they still looked just as dirty and battleworn as when they'd arrived. But each of their faces was lit up by a luminant, irrepressible smile.

This wasn't how either of them had imagined it.

_Bucky and Tom should be here_, Alice had whispered in that first excitable rush of words behind the church.

_I oughta at least __ask_ _you first, _Steve had added.

_We haven't got any rings._

_We're in the middle of a mission._

_We'd have to be sure these people will be able to keep the secret._

_It's a crazy idea._

_Bucky might actually kill us._

_We have to leave in five hours._

And yet here Alice found herself, grinning from ear to ear and practically bouncing on the balls of her feet as the pastor, wearing a robe over his pajamas, gave an introductory prayer in French. His wife Nanette sat at the front pew, also beaming from ear to ear. The Jewish family were still out saying their goodbyes, none the wiser.

Several candles cast a soft glow through the small church, and the pastor's low voice made the air sonorous, almost hypnotic.

Alice and Steve couldn't look away from each other. As the priest spoke, Alice watched the glee and nervous excitement sparking in Steve's eyes temper into something more solemn, more enduring. It turned Alice's giddy grin into a soft, cheek-hurting smile. Steve reached his hands out and she took them, squeezing probably tighter than was necessary.

She realized she'd forgotten to listen to the pastor when she jumped at the sound of her voice.

"... Alice Hedwig Moser," the pastor continued, in slow French so they could both understand him. "Will you have this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?" Alice swallowed, alarmed at the sudden feeling of tears pricking at her eyes. "Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health" - Steve smiled at that and Alice had to stifle a laugh. She shot him a mock-serious look: _hush, these are my wedding vows _\- "and, forsaking all others, be faithful unto him as long as you both shall live?"

"I will," Alice breathed in English, unable to repress her smile even if she'd cared to try. Steve's fingers tightened on hers, and she saw the rising gleam of tears in his eyes.

"Steven Grant Rogers," the pastor went on, and Steve took a deep breath. "Will you have this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?" Steve nodded almost unconsciously, and Alice had to stifle another laugh. "Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, be faithful unto her as long as you both shall live?"

Steve's eyes gleamed again as he drew in another breath and said croakily: "I will."

Alice's legs felt like jelly. She kept on holding on to Steve's hands as if she'd collapse or cease to exist without that touch.

The pastor looked over to his wife, but Steve and Alice didn't take their eyes off each other. "And will you witnessing do all in your power to uphold these persons in their marriage?"

"I will," smiled Nanette.

The pastor cleared his throat. "And as we don't, er - have any rings… it's not required, legally, so…" he drew his shoulders straight. "Now that Alice Moser and Steven Rogers have given themselves to each other by solemn vows, by the power unto me, with great pleasure," he smiled. "I pronounce you man and wife."

Alice and Steve stared at each other, gripping hands, beaming.

The pastor cleared his throat again. "You may kiss now, if you wish."

Steve let go of Alice's hands to cup her face, his eyes gleaming and a little dazzled, before Alice leaned up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. Her heart felt as if it had burst open and sent molten gold cascading through her as she kissed Steve - her husband. She threw her arms around his neck and he pulled her closer in response, one hand at the small of her back now as he tilted her back a little, making her chest bubble with laughter.

They broke apart beaming, stared at each other, then surged together in another kiss, making the pastor laugh. He stepped around them carefully and went to join his wife at the front pew. They held hands.

After an eternity Steve pulled away again, both hands cupping Alice's face, and stared into her eyes. "I love you, Alice. No matter where you are, or where I am, I love you. I always will."

Alice nodded and realized she was crying now; the tears dripped onto her still-smiling lips. "In sickness and in health," she said, and Steve picked her up, his arms a band around her middle and her arms around his neck, gripping each other as if making up for all the years and distance put between them.

_As long as you both shall live_, Alice thought, then banished the words. She carded her fingers through Steve's hair as he pressed his face into her neck, and closed her eyes. Because if she didn't live past tonight, she thought, this was enough.

* * *

The pastor and his wife offered their bed so that Alice and Steve could sleep a few hours before they had to leave again, but they turned down the offer. _We'll get out of your way_, Steve said, his hand in Alice's. So they took a canvas roll and a few tartan blankets and walked out into the quiet forest, in the warm night air. They found a clearing where they could see the stars.

Under the stars they came together as man and wife, as Alice had secretly hoped for since she was a brittle and angular teenager. She'd always known it would be like this: a little shy at first, sweet, but fuelled by the passion that had always burned in both of them.

* * *

Some time later as they lay together on the canvas under the stars, murmuring to each other, Steve said: "We'll do this again, properly, after the war. I dunno if that was really legal."

Lying bundled up under the blankets with her head on Steve's outstretched arm, Alice smiled. "I think it probably was. We signed the certificates and all." They were folded up in Steve's jacket, which lay at the other end of the canvas.

Steve's fingers curled through Alice's pale hair. "But we'll still do it again properly. With Buck, and Tom, and… you know, I should really ask Tom for your-"

"There is only one person on this earth who can give away my hand in marriage, Steve Rogers, as sweet as that thought is," Alice said with an arched eyebrow. He smiled, and she suspected that he'd said it just to get a rise out of her. She allowed herself to admire the way his smile played across his face. Without the cowl and the rest of the uniform he looked more similar to the skinny asthmatic she'd known in Brooklyn.

"Tom's going to be my best man," she said decisively.

"Does that mean he and Bucky will have to dance together at the wedding reception?" Steve said contemplatively.

"Oh, absolutely." She laughed at the thought of it. "Can you imagine? They'd be terrible."

"They'd upstage us for sure."

Alice smiled, imagining it all, and rested her palm on Steve's chest. "And I'll take your last name when I can do so without, you know, giving a few things away, but I'm keeping Moser as my stage name."

Steve beamed. "Whatever you want."

Alice let out a contented sigh. She knew this ought to feel strange - lying on a canvas in the middle of the forest, wearing practically nothing, after everything that the day had entailed, but this felt more normal than anything else she'd done these last four years. Her pain had faded, her excited adrenaline had eased, and she just felt warm, and safe.

She tapped Steve's chest lightly to get his attention again, only to find that he'd been watching her anyway. "I want to do it properly, Steve. But I think… I think tonight, we did it _right._"

A smile stole across his face, and the canvas rustled as he shifted to kiss her once again. His arms curled around her, sending heat washing through her body, and for a few long moments they didn't speak.

But then, abruptly, Steve rolled away from her and up onto his knees, the blanket tangled around his waist and a gleam in his eyes. "But I didn't do it properly!" he exclaimed. He shifted until he was kneeling on one knee. Alice propped herself on one elbow.

"Alice Moser," Steve said with emphasis, his hair skewed. "Will you…" his lips quirked. "Continue to be my wife?"

Alice gasped dramatically and covered her face with her hands. "I will!"

Steve dropped down, arms bracketing her, and Alice laughed as he peppered her face with kisses. She tugged on the ends of his hair and he slowed, brought his lips to hers.

"My wife," he murmured against her mouth. His face was so close that she could see nothing but his eyes, searching hers.

"My husband," she whispered back. They looked into each other's eyes a few more moments, caught halfway between laughter and awe. Steve closed his eyes first, and Alice pressed up to kiss him.

When she drew away a few moments later, Steve dropped down beside her again.

"Do you think our parents knew?" she whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think they knew what we'd be, one day? Sometimes… I don't know, sometimes mom and Matthias got this look in their eye when I mentioned your name, like they knew a secret that I didn't. I wonder if they knew."

Steve looked thoughtful. "Maybe they did. I never would've noticed, since even with Bucky telling me every damn day it took me a while to figure out how I felt. I think maybe my mom knew. I told you what she said to me once, right? Told me to keep you close_._"

Alice smiled. "I remember. You told me she said that after that time you got rheumatic fever. It was the first time I'd seen her outside of church - I gave her that tea for you."

"I kept a tin of that tea at my place in Brooklyn right up until I shipped out." Smiling, Steve kissed her hair and curled one arm over her, scooping her closer.

Alice smiled back, dug her toes deeper into the blanket to warm them up, and then eyed Steve speculatively. "You like being with me like this, don't you?" She made an expansive gesture at Steve's body to illustrate her point. Alice was curled into him and he'd wrapped around her like a blanket.

"I like being with you," Steve confirmed.

"You know what I mean," she said with a glint in her eye. She ran a hand over the thick bulk of his arm, so strange from what she was used to. She had to admit, seeing him properly shirtless tonight had stuck her words in her throat for a few moments. "You like this."

Steve ducked his head. "I… it's…"

"I'm not making fun," she murmured. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I can just tell."

His eyes flicked back to hers. "I'm stronger now. When I did anything physical before I'd end up breathless with my heart racing in about five minutes," he said pointedly. "The first time we kissed, I thought I would have a heart attack."

Alice smiled. "I'd be lying if I said that thought hadn't crossed my mind at the time."

He rolled his eyes, then softened. "I like that I can make it better for you. It, uh… it was…?"

She smiled again and kissed him. "No complaints here."

He pulled back a little so he could look her in the eye. "What about you? Do you prefer me like this?"

Alice cocked her head. Steve's tone was light, but she saw a weight in his eyes. His body had changed in the blink of an eye not too long ago and he was still coming to terms with it. "I'm glad I can finally be with you, no matter what you look like," she eventually said. She kissed his forehead, making him close his eyes, then his chest, over where his heart beat. "You haven't changed under the surface. I've wanted you, Steve Rogers, for a long time."

She pulled back, but she could see a furrow in Steve's brow. She'd said something wrong. "What?"

He swallowed. "You… don't like this. The…" he gestured to himself.

Alice didn't sigh, because that would be hurtful, but she did sit up so she could look him properly in the eyes. "I didn't say that," she said gently. "It's different. I…" her cheeks colored. "I've been thinking about this a long time, and in my head it was the smaller you, obviously, so I…" she swallowed again, trying to avoid Steve's eyes because they were going round. "It's just taken me a little while to, you know, adjust the fantasies." She closed her eyes at that, wincing over the last word. No one ever made her trip over her own tongue like Steve did.

There was a long silence. Then Steve said: "Fantasies?" And Alice's eyes snapped open because that was _not _the unsure, tentative voice he'd used earlier. He sounded almost _smug. _Sure enough his face was smug too, though still a little round-eyed.

Alice smacked him. "Alright, settle down. Don't want you getting a big head along with the rest of you."

"I sure don't, that wouldn't be accurate to the _fantasies_." She scowled further but Steve was only getting closer, his arm creeping around her back and his face growing closer. "How long exactly…?"

His breath brushed her neck and Alice's scowl faded. "Oh, don't - it's embarrassing!"

"I'll confess mine then: I've been thinking about you since we were thirteen."

"Thirteen!" she yelped, mostly because he'd pressed his lips to her neck, but then she relaxed into the sensation. "Yes, that sounds about right." After a few moments, she stroked her hand up the back of his neck. "Why did we wait so long?"

"This would've been more difficult when I was five foot four and doubled over from asthma," Steve noted as he scooped his arm around Alice's waist, lifted her and turned her onto her back. Alice never thought she'd like being manhandled, but she liked it from Steve. Because she knew that with him it wasn't about control, or being stronger than her, or being more powerful.

"More difficult maybe," Alice said. "I would've made it work."

"Oh?"

"I had extensive time to think about this."

"Don't let me prevent you from demonstrating - _oh_."

* * *

When Alice finally succumbed to her exhaustion and slipped asleep for an hour or two she knew, logically, that the rest of the world would spin on unaffected. Hell, right as she closed her eyes she knew there were _Maquisards _preparing for a distraction in the forest somewhere in a few hours. But for her, the world had shifted on its axis. She didn't know if anything would ever be the same.

* * *

_**~ I used to play into the night for you, sweet wife.  
I've not played a note since you parted from life. ~** _

* * *

When they woke up a few hours later in preparation to leave, they exchanged kisses that should have been desperate but weren't. Alice tugged on her cap and her clothes, becoming Al again, but Steve held onto her elbow to stop her standing up.

"Wait," he murmured. "I know we said we'd do this properly later, but if I'm doing it right..." He handed her a piece of fabric, which as she took it Alice realized was a folded scrap of dark blue lining from his uniform. He must have torn it off.

Alice frowned.

"Open it up," Steve prompted.

She unfolded the blue fabric, and stared down at it for a few moments. Her heart thudded.

"It's… I had to do my best drawing it from memory, but I think I got it right," Steve said, his eyes flicking from the charcoal drawing on the fabric to Alice's impassive face.

Alice drew a deep, measured breath as she looked down at the drawing. "Steve, this… is your mother's ring."

He let out a breath. "You remember it."

Alice traced the drawing. Steve had drawn the fine details with such accuracy she found it hard to believe he'd drawn from memory: a simple band, which she remembered was gold, with a small diamond set in delicate gold housing. Steve's mom had worn it on her ring finger every day. "Of course I remember it."

Steve swallowed. "It's… we'd get our own wedding bands, of course, and I know… I know this ring ain't big, it's all my dad could afford during the war really, but I thought… I'd like to give it to you. When I can. It's with my stuff back in Brooklyn."

Alice looked up, her eyes stinging. "You'd give it to _me_? Are you sure?"

Steve's lip quirked. "Well I mean, I did just marry you. You'd want to wear the ring?"

Alice's fingers shook as she held the drawing. "I'd be _honored._"

"Well." Steve took her hand and curled her fingers over the piece of fabric. "Until then, we'll have to make do with the drawing. I figured that wouldn't be too suspicious."

Alice pocketed the drawing carefully. "I don't have anything to give you."

Steve drew her close. "I've got everything I need."

* * *

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Internal Memo, 2013:

_Julian,_

_For the Brooklyn segment I'd like you to work on a display about Rogers' parents. For centrepieces I know for sure we have a framed photograph of Joseph Rogers, Sarah Rogers' nursing uniform (will have to see about the integrity of the fabric), as well as both their wedding rings and Sarah's engagement ring, but I'd have to check with the Museum Support Center to be sure about the rest. This segment has potential to be a good way of elaborating on the early twentieth century, so I'd like emphasis on the war and on the viral diseases of that period. Draw up a design plan for me and I'll take a look on Monday._

_Anaisha._

* * *

As Al and Captain America again, they returned to the little village in the darkness to find the pastor leaning against the back of the church, holding a candle.

"I thought I would have to come out and find you," he said with a warm smile.

"No fear," Steve said as he tightened one of his uniform straps. "We appreciated the privacy, but it's important to us to get that family back safe."

"I know," the pastor nodded. "I knew that the moment you both stepped into my home. Congratulations again, by the way," he said in a lower voice as they grew near.

Alice smiled. "Thank you."

The pastor glanced over his shoulder. "Georg and Reba are inside, they put the children down for some sleep but they're waking them back up now." He turned back. "Take our car for the journey back. It's large enough to fit you all, and you can leave in the forest outside town when you're done, near the well. We'll pick it up later."

"We appreciate it," Steve nodded. "We'll hide it carefully so no one else finds it."

They heard soft footfalls and glanced over to see Nanette, the pastor's wife, padding toward them through the dewy grass. She yawned behind her hand. "The children are awake, they're ready to go." Her eyes lighted on Alice and Steve. "You look well rested." Her mouth curled into a smile.

"We'll be going then," Steve smiled back.

The pastor took his wife's hand, and together they gave Alice and Steve a solemn look. "We wanted to reassure you that not a word will ever leave our lips of what has happened here tonight." Alice found her own hand reaching automatically for Steve's. Their fingers curled together. The pastor's face became grave. "I hope that one day, for everyone's sakes, that you two, like Georg and Reba's family, can live where and how you please."

Overwhelmed, Alice stepped forward and kissed the Pastor's cheek. "Thank you. For everything."

* * *

The children cried as they watched the pastor and his wife grow small in the car's rear window, along with the village they'd known their whole lives. Alice didn't know how much their parents had told them, but she guessed from the eldest boy's eyes that at least he had some inkling of how permanent this removal was going to be. Alice wanted to apologize to him.

She and Steve sat in the front seat of the pastor's dark green 1932 Ford, with the whole family squashed into the back. Georg and Reba, their eyes wide, sat with the eldest boy between them, and their two younger children on their laps. They had a single duffle bag at their feet, and a small parcel of food from the church. The toddler sniffled through the whole journey.

Things were tense on the road. As they drove with their headlights off in the dim pre-dawn light, they came across signs of evacuated road blocks. They even had to stop once to push aside a set of abandoned barricades. But there was no sign of life.

Alice and Steve stole glances at each other when they could, glowing with their secret.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Righteous Among the Nations awarded in Paris_' in _Le Monde, _3 August 1965 [Translated]:

_Pastor Aleron Bernard and his wife Nanette (pictured above with the Fradin family, who they hid in their church for two years during World War II) were today awarded with Righteous Among the Nations medals at a ceremony at the __Mémorial de la Shoah_ _in Paris_ _on Monday. _

_They were presented with honorary citizenship of Israel, and their names will appear on the Wall of Honor in the Garden of the Righteous of Yad Vashem, Israel. _

_In accepting the honor, Pastor Bernard said that he and his wife are "honored, moved, and most of all very thankful that George, Reba and their children are able to live safe and free"._

_Pastor Bernard, Nanette, and the citizens of their small village south of _ _Montluçon protected the Fradins for two years under Nazi occupation._

* * *

Alice let out a heavy sigh when they turned the last bend and the still-smoking town finally came into view. The orange sliver of dawn had appeared on the horizon, meaning they had less than an hour to get this family on a plane. They parked in the north forest, following the pastor's instructions, then Alice picked up the toddler and Steve picked up the family's bags, and they all hurried east to where they could see _Maquisards _milling in and out of the town.

Patting the sniffling little girl's back, Alice hailed the first _Maquisard _they came close to. "Where are the Americans?"

The man pointed east in the direction of the makeshift airfield, staring at them.

Alice bit the inside of her cheek. The sun was creeping over the horizon. "Hurry now."

They half-jogged along the tramped-down road in the field, passing destroyed HYDRA trucks and split-open sandbags. Alice could feel the eyes of the small family darting everywhere, and their fear mounting. She glanced at Steve, and he shot her a reassuring look.

"They won't leave without us," he murmured.

"But we told them to leave if we weren't back on time," Alice reminded him.

He sighed. "I know. But Bucky's with them."

Alice nearly laughed. The idea of Bucky leaving Steve behind? She couldn't even comprehend it.

Finally they hurried over a slight rise in the field and found themselves looking down at the makeshift airfield - a hastily flattened plain of grass with a C-47 cargo plane waiting at the far end, its propellers still, with a small group of people standing by it. Alice and Steve led the way down to the airfield, and soon a shout arose from the group by the plane. It sounded suspiciously like '_about time!_'

By the time they'd reached the grass by the parked cargo plane, Alice was well and truly breathless and the toddler in her arms was grabbing at her mouth, laughing. _Well, I'm glad one of us thinks this is funny._

"_Reba!_"

Alice looked up to see Lisette sprinting across the grass towards her sister, tears in her eyes and her hair flying. She halted her momentum only at the last moment to avoid crushing the baby, then flung her arms around Reba with a desperate laugh.

Smiling, Alice looked over to see the 107th Tactical Team standing by the cargo plane with a few _Maquisards_, a man who looked like the SSR pilot (he was looking at his watch), and -

"_Otto_?" Alice exclaimed. She hastened towards the group.

Otto stepped forward, his eyes flicking over her and the toddler wriggling in her arms. He was disguised too, this time in a shaggy blonde wig and a heavy set of spectacles. "You're alright?"

She glanced down at herself. Filthy, rumpled and carrying a toddler, she couldn't imagine how she looked. "I'm fine," she said. She reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "What are you doing here? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. I just realized yesterday that you might have done something foolhardy" - he shot a significant look at the dirty bandage wrapped around her forearm - "and I came to get you."

"I'm alright, really," she said quellingly. "I would've been fine to get a lift back into the city with the _Maquisards_ like we agreed." Out of the corner of her eye she watched Steve stride up to the rest of his team and greet them. Lisette and Reba were weeping as they walked up together, Georg and their son following, looking exhausted.

"I'm glad to hear that," Otto said earnestly. His eyebrows came together. "Did you really fight?"

Alice swallowed guiltily. "Yes."

"_Alice. _What if you were hurt? Killed? We can't afford to-"

"I know," she cut in soberly. "You _know _I know. I'm sorry. We can talk about it later, but for now…" she held up the toddler pointedly.

"Right," Otto sighed. He frowned at her. "Why do you seem happy?"

Alice suppressed a smile. "I'm not allowed to be happy?"

His frown deepened as they both began to walk toward the group by the plane. "Very well then," he said. "I'm going to drive us back to Bourges right away, but you should know - the Propaganda Department sent me a telegram yesterday. We're to evacuate France immediately."

Alice nearly tripped. "Today?"

"As soon as possible. The Allies are breaking loose of Normandy, in no time they'll have swept the country. The troops aren't evacuating yet, but the Propaganda Department don't want to risk us any longer."

She blew out a breath. "Well then. Back to Berlin, then?"

"For now."

They reached the rest of the group, and Alice smiled as the others welcomed her back. She and Steve shared a glint-eyed glance.

"You may get on the plane now," Dernier was telling Georg, Reba, and Lisette. "The others are waiting already. We have saved you some seats."

"Thank you," Reba said emphatically, tears on her cheeks. She had her infant in one arm and clutched her sister's hand with the other. Georg reached out, and Alice gladly handed over the grabby toddler.

"_Tout le meilleur_," [_All the best_] Alice whispered to the child with a wink, and she giggled.

"Truly," Georg said as he held the girl to his chest, and clutched his son's hand. "We… cannot thank you enough." His eyes flicked from Alice to Steve. "Both of you." Then his eyes roved over the group before him, and the plane. "All of you."

"Thank us by living well," Alice told him with a smile. It was what she'd said to dozens of other refugees and fugitives she'd helped flee Nazi territories. She liked to think of them all with full stomachs and warm beds, free of fear. Georg inclined his head, and Reba nodded emphatically. With another wave, the whole family walked down to board the plane. The pilot followed them, with a significant look at Steve and then his watch as he left.

Alice set her hands on her hips and looked around at them all. Steve, Bucky, and the rest of the 107th Tactical Team, about to fly back to Normandy to join the rest of the fight once more.

"Goodbye again," Steve said with a sad smile, the first to speak. Alice met his eyes and the night they'd shared sparked between them. All this - the plane, the _Maquisards_, the smoking town, felt like a return to reality. But here they both stood, man and wife, in the middle of it all.

"Yes," she said on an exhale. "You're all too good at your jobs." She jerked her head at Otto. "We're being sent back to Germany."

The 107th Tactical Team let out an exclamation of surprise and regret, but Alice's eyes didn't leave Steve. He seemed… disappointed, and yet relieved at the same time. He knew Berlin was probably safer for her right now than the fighting front in France. Alice smiled, and he echoed the smile back to her.

"We'll see you next time, then," Dugan said with forced cheer, and Alice dragged her eyes off Steve so she could lean over to give the man a hug.

"Take care of them, Dugan," she muttered. The plane engines started up with a roar.

"I'll do my best, ma'am. Though half the time they're the ones taking care of me."

She farewelled each of them once again, trading a joke or a knowing hand squeeze - she'd fought alongside these men in battle, now. With Falsworth in particular, she felt a strange kind of unspoken bond. He tipped his cap to her.

When she came to Steve she gripped the back of his uniform in desperate handfuls as she hugged him, and he tucked his face into her neck for the briefest of moments. His hand settled over her hip, where the drawing of the ring sat in her pocket.

"I'll see you back behind enemy lines, soldier," Alice murmured.

"It's a date," he murmured back.

They pulled apart, and Alice tried not to wince at the flicker of pain in her chest.

As she turned to hug Bucky goodbye, the others had already started making their way towards the plane. The plane's propellers were already at full speed, kicking up gusts of wind across the field.

"I'll see you later," Alice smiled as Bucky hoisted her off her feet again.

He squeezed her in reply. "Have a bath," he muttered. "You stink."

"You're one to talk." As Bucky set her down and she began to pull away, she said: "Steve and I got married."

"What?"

"You heard me." She turned and walked to where Otto was waiting for her, one hand clamped to his head to keep his wig from flying away.

"_What_?" Bucky called over the whirring engines.

Alice turned with a sunny grin and just waved. Bucky stared back at her, his eyes round and his mouth open, until Steve shouted something from the back of the plane and with a start, he ran to the ramp.

He glanced back just before he boarded, cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted: "_What?_" again.

Watching Bucky with his bewildered expression, half hanging out the back of the plane, with Steve just visible behind him, Alice beamed even wider and then blew a dramatic kiss towards them.

Laughing, Steve hauled Bucky into the plane and a moment later the ramp slammed shut.

Alice and Otto stood, side by side, watching as the plane rolled down the flattened grass field, picking up speed, until with a shiver it sailed into the sky. Alice felt her heart pounding against her ribs and a strange sensation of elation swelling like a balloon in her gut.

She felt Otto looking at her. "I'm not going to be very happy with your report on this, am I?"

Alice squinted up at the dull metal aircraft growing smaller and smaller in the pale pink sky. "No," she said with a half-laugh. "You're really not."

* * *

Excerpt from '_Welcome to Wakanda_', draft tourist brochure for Wakanda's global opening, 2018:

_This gnarled Vibranium statue (pictured left) is dedicated to Yiva, an ancient Wakandan musician and lyricist who perfected the art of crafting Vibranium into strings for the kora instrument. Her genius and musical skill changed the face of Wakanda's musical legacy. Legend says that at the end of her life, Yiva walked out onto the veld at night and walked on into the stars, where she will play for the gods until the sun goes dark._

* * *

One day later, the Red Skull's sleek black car screeched to a halt on the main road of the smoking, rubble-strewn town. His eyes were wild as he threw open the door of his car and stared around, shoulders heaving.

He went without the plastic face mask now, choosing to bare his scarlet, god-like skin to the world. It made soldiers cower with fear when he turned on them.

The rest of his forces had already descended on the town to recover what they could, but they couldn't stay - without the Uber Tanks and aircraft to defend their position, the Germans or the Americans would sweep through here with ease.

He spied Doctor Zola standing on a mound of rubble and stormed toward him.

"Herr Schmidt," Zola stammered when he saw his infuriated leader approaching. "I - we-"

"_You are failing_!" Schmidt roared, rage surging through him. Zola cowered back. Fists clenched, Schmidt turned away. "We are close to an offensive which will shake the _planet_." He began striding away, looking out over the smoking piles of cement and warped machinery around him. A HYDRA soldier lay dead on a bollard nearby.

"And yet we are continually delayed," he went on, "because you cannot outwit a simpleton with a _shield_!"

"This is hardly my area of expertise," Zola complained, "I - I merely develop the weapons, I cannot fire them."

Schmidt felt his rage condense, crystallise. He loomed over Zola. "Finish your mission, doctor, before the American finishes his."

"Sir!"

Schmidt looked over his shoulder to see two of his soldiers escorting a sooty, ragged man in a suit toward him. This was Doctor Becker, the leading production officer at this town. He must have fled to the forest.

"I'm sorry Herr Schmidt," Becker said, his eyes desperate. "We fought to the last man."

_Ah. _Schmidt's anger had been surging in him since he heard of this town's demise. And now: a supplicant.

Doctor Zola looked away.

"Evidently not," Schmidt grit out.

With a blast and a flash of blue light, the last man crumbled to ash.

* * *

Excerpt from SSR Mission Report #196500, Agent MC, August 8 1944. Archived by Catherine Laurey, S.H.I.E.L.D. Archivist:

_An initial survey of the evacuees indicates that there are 42 Prisoners of War (largely a mix of American and British servicemen, though formal identification is still pending), and 112 French civilians, including 10 children. I recommend we settle all evacuees in London and surrounds, where they will find communities of fellow refugees and evacuees. _

… _I am happy to report a complete mission success._

* * *

2 September 1944

For once, Alice actually enjoyed her birthday. She turned 26 this year, marking five years of war.

Sure, she didn't get to spend the day with her loved ones (aside from Otto), and sure, she was in the heart of Berlin alongside all the worst people she'd ever met, but there was a certain kind of glee in getting to watch the Third Reich crumble from within.

The past month had seen mass wins by the Allies in France - a week after Alice and Otto had been evacuated the _Résistance _rose up against the Nazis in Paris, on the 25th the city had been claimed by the Allies, and General Charles de Gaulle had arrived to assume control. France was French again.

Alice had also heard through her network that after the liberation of Paris, Vera Izard of the OCM had been released from a prison outside the city. Alice knew she wouldn't get a chance to see Vera again for a long time, but the knowledge that she was alive and safe bolstered her spirits.

After the destruction of the rural French town held by HYDRA, the HYDRA forces had nowhere left to go but back to their main factory in France. The SSR had dogged their heels the whole way, and a few days after the liberation of Paris they had blasted the base to smithereens. All Alice and Otto had to do was sit back and share a glass of champagne.

The borders were turning on on both sides of the Reich. The Propaganda Department was more cautious with sending Alice out to perform so she'd spent the last month in Germany and Austria, shoring up her networks here. She'd been performing fairly regularly, hopping from city to city.

And wherever she went, she took the drawing of Steve's mother's ring with her. At first she'd felt the instinct to hide it, but instead she put it in pride of place in her dressing room, where anyone could see it. Whenever anyone asked about it, she smiled mysteriously and told them it was from a "sweetheart". She was known for her flirtations so the mysterious tease seemed to fit right in. It even made some young officers jealous, and more desperate to get her attention by spilling their secrets.

Otto eyed the drawing sceptically, but didn't say anything. She'd told him in frank terms about what she and Steve had done - and instead of being angry, like she had expected, he had simply reached out and kissed both her cheeks. _Congratulations_, he'd said. But he hadn't been able to keep the sadness out of his voice.

Alice knew why: he thought this would doom her.

Every time Alice looked at the intricately drawn ring on the scrap of blue fabric, she missed Steve. She hadn't seen him since that night, and she was tired of being apart from him. In Germany, she didn't even have the benefit of regular contact. And yet, keeping that hand-drawn ring close reminded her of what was to come. If she was lucky.

And whenever a Nazi saw and complimented the design, she felt a vindictive burn of satisfaction. She never said it out loud, but she always thought: _Captain America drew that. And you'll never see him coming._

* * *

__**~ Your song flows like mead**  
borne of blood  
it runs through your veins. ~ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [ring](https://www.theknotnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/engagement-rings-1910s.jpg) I based Sarah Rogers's on.
> 
> We've got a nice long chapter coming next week, buckle up!


	48. Chapter Thirty Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, folks.

**Jane Ellen Harrison: "** _ **It is strange and beautiful that Homer should make the Sirens appeal to the spirit, not to the flesh… They are mantic creatures like the Sphinx with whom they have much in common, knowing both the past and the future. Their song takes effect at midday, in a windless calm. The end of that song is death** _ **."**

* * *

In late September, Alice met with the 107th Tactical Team again. Belgium had been mostly secured but fighting had stalled in the Netherlands, being particularly ferocious around the Rhine river. Alice had figured out a route from Germany into the Netherlands through the Rhinelands - borders were breaking down, and both sides cared more about stopping armies than individual refugees.

Her role was, again, to connect Steve and his team with local resistance. The Netherlands resistance weren't as wholly connected as the French had been, and mostly existed to help stranded Allied airmen and soldiers escape.

Alice only got to spend fifteen minutes with the team in total.

Just after dusk in a city east of Arnhem, Alice strode down the paved sidewalk with her hands in her coat pockets and her heeled shoes clipping on the ground. She wore a thick woolen dress to protect against the cooling weather, and a jet black wig under a headscarf. She'd slightly altered her appearance - thicker makeup, like older women sometimes wore, dark eyebrows, and a pair of eyeglasses.

She saw Steve before he saw her. He stood in the eave of a closed office building in a disguise of his own: brown slacks and an overcoat, with a knit cap. It wasn't as if most Germans or Belgians would know Steve's face if he wasn't in uniform, so she supposed he was safe enough.

Steve heard her footsteps a moment later and looked over, shoulders tense. For a moment Alice knew that he did not recognise her - he kept his face shadowed, and she sensed him watching her warily. But then he spotted the curve of her lips and his eyes widened.

In the same moment Alice stepped up onto the stoop, set her hand on Steve's side and kissed him.

He almost jerked away in surprise, but the moment her lips brushed his he softened and leaned into it, kissing her back with such enthusiasm that Alice almost laughed as she pulled away.

"Just keeping up a good cover," she winked.

He smiled, still a little startled. "No Al?" he questioned.

"No, this resistance group knows me as a woman called Marie, and I just came from them - it's a long story."

"Are you sure you didn't just want to dress up for your _husband_," came a familiar, teasing voice, and a moment later Bucky stepped out from behind the other side of the terraced doorway, his eyebrows raised. Alice and Steve both went pink.

"He hasn't let me live it down," Steve sighed, casting Alice a world-wearing look. "Reckons it's the greatest betrayal of the war, us getting married without him."

"We _are _sorry," Alice smiled as she gripped Bucky's hand in a _hello. _He wore a similar nondescript outfit to Steve's, though his was a little more dressed up - he wore a straight tie and a trilby hat. "But it's not often you get a few spare hours and a pastor handy."

"Kids these days," Bucky teased. "Corrupting the institution of marriage."

Alice rolled her eyes.

Bucky smiled. "You didn't give me enough time to say last time though: congratulations. Really, I'm happy for you two impulsive idiots." Alice returned the smile, and Steve looked between them with gleaming eyes. "Happy late birthday, by the way."

"Thank you," Alice beamed. "Where are the others?"

"We're in groups," Steve explained. "They can see us, they'll follow at a distance. We thought we'd be more conspicuous in a big group."

"Smart." Alice's eyes darted until she spotted a man smoking down the street. If she squinted, she thought she recognized him as Falsworth. "Alright, follow me."

They set off in the other direction, Steve and Bucky matching Alice's strides. Yellow lamplight cast their silhouettes into long shadows.

"Please tell me you're not fighting this time," Steve murmured, his arm brushing hers.

"I'm not. I can't stay long, since I have to be back in Germany by morning. I'm not even supposed to be in this country at all."

"That's never stopped you before," Steve muttered, and they shared a smile.

"No," she reassured him. "I think I've learned I'm not much of a soldier." They passed a hotel front with a group of civilians standing on the doorstep, and she held her tongue for a few moments until they were a few yards away. "But I knew you lot would need direction once you got here, and I needed to give you these." She reached into her coat and pulled out a newspaper, which she handed to Steve. "Page five."

Steve opened the paper and his eyes widened at the weapons diagrams pasted to the inside of page five.

"Those are the new weapons HYDRA have developed, and they're in use at the Belgian factory. It's an acoustic weapon, intended to disable any approaching troops with a high-pitched frequency. You'll need to take out the power source before facing them head on."

"Thanks for the heads up," Bucky said appreciatively as Steve examined the designs. "This idiot's main tactic is facing them head on."

"I'm aware," she chuckled. "Also, this resistance group I'm taking you to aren't fighters. They're students who get fugitives to safety. They can direct you to the HYDRA base, and they can help you with any POWs you find, but don't ask them to fight." She shot them a heavy gaze.

"We won't," Steve nodded. "Kids shouldn't be fighting."

As they turned a corner Alice thought _we're basically kids_, but didn't say it. "_But_," she added, "These kids have been smuggling weapons to the POWs in the factory by hiding them in incoming HYDRA shipments from town. And HYDRA have allied with a local German division out of mutual desperation, and part of that German division is made up of Dutch conscripts. I've only managed to speak with one of them, but I'm 90% sure that with the right motivation, or the right words, those men will help you fight."

Bucky nodded. "Steve's good with the right words."

Steve looked thoughtful as he tucked the newspaper into his coat. "That's good advice. How can we tell the Dutch from the Germans? Won't they be wearing the same uniform?"

"If they shoot at you, they're probably German," Alice said grimly, and Bucky put a hand to his forehead. Alice looked up. "We're almost there. You see that green door?"

She didn't point, but Bucky and Steve looked ahead and spotted a green door to what looked like a storm cellar, down the alleyway they had just approached. The street around them was empty for now, save for the distant sound of glasses clinking.

"Knock six times, in two sets of three, and then the password is _Hemels_. Got it?"

"Got it," they nodded.

Alice drew in a breath, but then Steve frowned. "Wait" - he reached out and touched her arm, making her pause - "You're okay?"

She smiled. "I am. I'm… tired, I'll admit, but I've got more determination than ever now that the end's in sight. It's good to see you. How are you both?"

Steve looked to Bucky, who shrugged. "I'm better." He met her eye meaningfully, and Alice nodded. The conversation they'd had in Italy hung between them; she could see that Bucky still hadn't confided in anyone about what he'd been through in that Austrian HYDRA base, but he might be getting closer to it.

She turned to Steve and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm good," he smiled. "I always am, when I see you."

"Right, you don't get to see how goddamn mopey he gets when we haven't seen you in a while," Bucky added.

"Thanks for that," Steve sighed.

With another smile Alice leaned over to kiss Bucky on the cheek, then kissed Steve full on the mouth again - he was ready for it this time.

When she pulled back, she eyed them both seriously. "Listen, Otto and I might be quiet for a little while. We're going to keep updating on the on-the-ground mission stuff, but we're going to really dig into HYDRA now that they've got a fewer number of bases. Instead of focusing on one country at a time, we're going to put out feelers and try to get a better understanding of their operations as a whole. So don't be surprised if you don't get a whole lot of specific stuff from us for a while."

"Okay," Steve nodded. "When do you think that will be ready?"

"It'll be at least a month. Maybe more. We've been getting word that HYDRA is working up to something big-"

"Us too," Steve added grimly.

"So we want to get a better understanding of _when. _Seems like it'll be next year, since they've been delayed so much by you guys. But whatever it is, we haven't put a stop to it yet."

"We will," Steve said firmly.

"I know," she smiled. She jerked her head towards the green door. "Now go on, the next Gestapo patrol will be around in a few minutes and we still need to get the others down there."

Bucky nodded, exchanged another loaded glance with Alice, then headed toward the door.

Steve drew in a deep breath. Alice knew he must be feeling the same dragging, clutching pain as she did in these moments. Too little time together, far too much time apart. She could hardly believe that the last time they'd been together had been their wedding night.

"This doesn't count as our honeymoon," she blurted out.

He grinned. "I love you."

"I love you too. Now get out of here."

He smiled, holding her gaze, then turned to follow Bucky.

Alice sat on the nearest door stoop and adjusted her shoes, her head ducked to keep her face in shadow. She heard the six knocks and then the _creak _of the door around the corner as Steve and Bucky entered. Moments later, she heard footsteps approaching to her right and peeked up to see Falsworth's tall form approaching. He wore canvas overalls.

"Green door around the corner. Two sets of three knocks, password is _Hemels_," she muttered when he was near enough.

Falsworth didn't glance down at her. "Keep your chin up," he whispered, then disappeared around the corner.

Alice passed the instructions on to each man as they passed her door stoop.

Dernier and Gabe were next, passing her with an excitable "_Salut! J'espère que vous allez bien!_" [_Hello! I hope you're well!_].

Dugan merely tipped his hat as he passed, his whiskers twitching. When Morita passed, Alice added after her instructions: "Say goodbye and good luck to them all for me. I look forward to reading about your upcoming victory in the paper." Morita nodded, grinning, and then he too disappeared.

When Alice heard the storm door creak shut for the last time she put her hands in her coat pockets and set off down the street again, heading for the place she'd locked up her bicycle. At the end of the road she passed the patrolling Gestapo troop, and nodded politely. One of them whistled at her. The rest looked bored.

A smile flickered on Alice's lips when she'd left the Gestapo behind. She didn't feel tired any longer. She felt untouchable: she had another memory of Steve to get her through the days and weeks ahead.

* * *

In October, Alice and Otto returned to Vienna for a performance tour through the city. They still had a handful of backup singers, who greatly appreciated not having to travel to wild and dangerous places, and enjoyed trying out the local dishes - most of them were Berlin girls.

Alice's hopeful mood had not lasted long. Throughout September, the Warsaw Uprising had begun to fail. The Red Army hadn't come to the aid of the rebels, and at the start of October the remaining Polish forces had been forced to surrender to the Germans after months of being massacred. The entire population had then been expelled by the Germans and sent to a transit camp. Word was that the Germans wanted to demolish the whole city.

Days after the surrender, Alice's stylist and fellow agent Heidi got the news: her husband, a fighter in the Polish resistance, had been killed in a street battle in Warsaw weeks ago.

Heidi did as so many others had: she drew into herself, and worked on. Alice never saw her cry, never heard her utter a word, but could sense pain radiating around her like a static cloud. Alice wondered if that was what she would become if she got news of Steve's death: a silent, cold spectre, going through the motions of a mortal life.

Alice allowed herself to grieve for Heidi, and for Warsaw: she felt heartbroken for those rebels who would not live long enough to see the Germans retreat, and horror at the idea that the Germans could simply erase an entire city from the Earth.

And while she grieved, she kept working.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_The Obliteration of Warsaw_' by Maureen Jones (1992):

_Following four years of brutal occupation which had involved widespread bombing, moving citizens into ghettos, and countless deaths, theWarsaw Uprising fell in September of 1944. _

_Hans Frank, head of the German government in Poland, said "When we crush the uprising, Warsaw will get what it deserves - complete annihilation." _

_He kept to his word. German architectural experts and historians oversaw a systematic, planned destruction of the city: soldiers with flamethrowers and explosives set about destroying buildings, specifically targeting historical and cultural landmarks. _

_Heinrich Himmler told the officers of the SS: "The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth and serve only as a transport station for the Wehrmacht. No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation._"

_When the Germans abandoned Warsaw in January of 1945, 85% of the city had been completely destroyed, damage that was later estimated at around $30 Billion in losses. _

_Between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died in the Uprising alone. Estimates of total Polish losses during the war are closer to 6 million._

* * *

Alice made regular visits to Berlin throughout October and November, watching the mood change each time. Alice's audiences grew larger and more enthusiastic as the war stretched on and sources of entertainment grew thin. Berlin's stone monuments and draped red flags, which had once seemed so invincible and domineering to her, began to feel like facades. The city was pockmarked with bomb craters.

Herr Karloff, their overseeing producer at the Propaganda Department, became looser with information as his confidence in his superiors began to slip. On one visit after Alice's performance at the opera house, Karloff burst out in a five-minute rant about how Berlin had gone downhill.

"But at least good old Inge is always reliable," he finished, taking a long drag from his cigar as his secretary removed the brandy glasses from the table. "Always there with a pen and paper, and a cup of coffee. It's the little things."

Alice grimaced at the secretary in solidarity, but instead of commiseration she saw hard determination on the woman's face; determination to prove herself. It made Alice's heart wilt - no matter what, there were some who would forever cling to Nazi idealism.

In mid October, Heinrich Himmler announced his intention to crack down on groups like the _Edelweißpiraten_. The news made Alice's hackles rise: the _Edelweißpiraten _were a loose group of pre-military aged teenagers, mostly nuisances. They sang cheeky songs about the Hitler Youth and went on camping trips. She knew the group well since it had links to the _Swingjugend, _and thus to her fellow Vienna resistance member Hugo and his friends.

Reading the atmosphere, Alice sent out an urgent message through her networks for all the anti-Nazi youth groups to halt activities for a week or two. She knew they wouldn't all listen, but she had to try. These groups were mostly boys and their loud and obvious form of resistance frightened her, for their sakes. She felt certain that if Steve had been Austrian he would be the first to pin an _Edelweiss _badge to his chest, and that just made her feel more protective over the boys.

Alice supplied money and camping supplies to those boys who'd resisted conscription and were making a nuisance of themselves in Vienna, and urged them to get out of the city for a while. They went.

In early November, news rippled throughout the Reich of the capture and execution without trial of thirteen young men in Cologne, who called themselves the _Ehrenfeld Group_. From what Alice could tell they'd been stealing to survive, mostly, and had been caught after a shoot-out with some SS members. They were led by a 23 year old who'd escaped a concentration camp. Some of them were former _Edelweißpiraten. _Six of them were teenagers.

Alice enclosed herself in her uncle's house when she heard the news, and cried. She wasn't sure why the news had affected her like this: so sharply, so painfully. She'd heard of children dying before.

But as she cried alone in the empty mansion she realized what it was: two of the boys who'd been hanged were seventeen. And today, November 3rd, was her brother's seventeenth birthday.

* * *

Excerpt from '_The Anti-Hitler Youth_' by Wilhelm Roters (1980):

_When questioned about his group's aims by the Gestapo, the leader of the group Steinbr_ _ück said that he and his followers "would have done everything possible to end the war as soon as possible to the detriment of Germany. This is the reason we had the weapons cache. The factories necessary to the war effort and train routes were to be blown up, to bring the front closer. The most recent members of our hard-scrabble club knew of these plans and supported them"._

… _despite these ruthless executions, the Nazi regime never broke the spirit of most __Edelweißpiraten and other anti-Nazi youth groups, who went on to continue hiding their minority friends, army deserters, and even Allied servicemen behind enemy lines._

* * *

While Alice and Otto worked from within Germany and Austria to hunt out all the information they could about HYDRA, the 107th Tactical Team hammered back HYDRA's lines. They mostly worked in Belgium and the Netherlands, but spent most of November in Greece, where a HYDRA fortress was resisting all Allied attempts to overcome it.

Back in Western Europe, they threw their might behind the Allied push up into the Netherlands, and east toward Germany, while also hunting out remaining HYDRA pockets. They were pretty sure they'd scoured HYDRA out of everywhere west of Germany, leaving Germany itself and at least two factories in the East.

In mid-December, the Germans struck back against the expanding Allied lines in the Ardennes in Belgium, launching thousands of troops and dozens of tanks against the unsuspecting Allies. Steve and the 107th Tactical team were rapidly deployed, and spent a week battling day and night against the German forces in the tough mountainous terrain under stormy skies.

They were tired. They'd been fighting nearly non stop for a year now, and even though they got a few days leave in London here and there, and each of Steve's men was as committed as any soldier could be, the SSR knew they needed a break. So when the orders came through to Steve to prepare his men for a short intelligence-gathering mission in the Alps near the border between France, Switzerland, and Italy - a relatively quiet area for fighting at the moment - Steve suspected that this was their way of giving them a reprieve for a while.

What's more, the nature of the mission reminded Steve of the large report on HYDRA's operations that Alice had said she and Otto were working on.

Bucky grinned when Steve admitted his suspicion as they trudged back to camp in the rain. "I didn't know the SSR was handing out conjugal missions-"

Steve elbowed him, sighing. He and Bucky had mutually agreed to keep Steve and Alice's wedding a secret from the rest of the 107th Tactical Team; it wasn't that Steve didn't trust them, but he and Alice were private people naturally and he knew they'd both rather tell their friends when they were ready. He had a feeling that they'd wait until the end of the war. It would feel like a real celebration then.

_As long as we win the war, _Steve reminded himself. It was looking promising these days, but Steve knew things could change in an instant. All it had taken for the Nazis to be pushed onto the defensive was their blunder in the battle of Stalingrad.

"I just think she might meet us there, is all," Steve said defensively. His boots sloshed with water. "She's been working hard-"

"How do you know?" Bucky laughed. "We've had about three messages from her directly, that we know of, since September." Steve's face flickered, and Bucky dropped the teasing tone in his voice instantly. "Sorry, punk. I just… it's nice seeing you two happy, even from afar. And I feel morally obligated to make fun of you for it."

Steve felt his uncertain mood ease off him like snow melting away. Bucky was sure good at that. "Jerk," he muttered.

Bucky clapped him on the shoulder. "C'mon, pal, let's keep packing. The Alps in December will be cold as all hell. Better bring your scarf."

* * *

At Alice's inherited mansion in Vienna, Alice packed a small bag on the dining room table as Otto sat on an upholstered chair, his arms crossed. They'd just returned from Berlin. Alice went down a mental list of things to be managed in Vienna while she was away - things the network needed to monitor, and social arrangements to make. Otto nodded, not bothering to make notes. She knew he'd remember.

Alice checked her bag, making sure that under inspection it only appeared to contain clothes and toiletries. She was bringing a veritable wealth of stolen documents and photographs with her, and it had made packing tricky. "Is there anything else we need to handle before I leave?"

Otto sank a little lower in his chair, and rubbed his eyes. "No, we've sold the story to pretty much everyone who needs to hear it, the Propaganda Department doesn't want anything else out of you until next month, and" - his head jerked up - "Oh, there was something else. Apparently that Propaganda Department secretary has been pushing the higher ups to review your travel receipts."

Alice's brows came together. "What?"

Otto shrugged. "She's a bit of a battleaxe, she probably thinks you're committing fraud or something. But I'm concerned that by sticking her nose in she might actually find something." He rubbed his temples. "I've considered eliminating her."

Alice snapped her bag closed. "No," she said firmly. "Otto, listen to yourself. _Eliminating _her? you sound just like them."

He looked up. "What do you want me to do? Let her snoop?"

"Don't get me wrong," Alice sighed, "If she finds something and it's likely that she'll blow our operation, then we'll protect ourselves. Whether that's kidnapping her, or killing her, we will make the decision." Shoulders straight, Alice met Otto's eyes with a hard gaze. "But human lives are _not _so easily disposable."

"Alright," Otto sighed, flapping a hand at her. "It's not like they listen to her anyway, the only reason I found out is because Karloff was complaining to me about how 'women these days think they can tell a man how to do his job'."

"Great," Alice said dully. The same attitude which had all these men underestimating her, it seemed, was the same attitude which would prevent her from being discovered.

"Be careful, though," Otto urged. "Clearly your siren song doesn't work on everyone."

Alice fastened her bag and let out a deep sigh. She'd have to leave soon.

She looked up the table to Otto. He looked years older than he had when she'd first met him, and even then he'd been grizzled. Alice knew that she had aged too: her edges were sharper, her eyes harder. She felt as if the war had forged her like a marble statue, chipping pieces away to reveal her true form. The war, to Otto, had been like a harsh and stormy season to a sturdy oak tree.

Alice drew in a deep breath then strode up to her handler, who had become so much more than that. She didn't think there'd ever be a word for what Otto was to her.

As he watched her, Alice leaned down to kiss Otto on the cheek. His stubble scratched her lips and he was tense the whole time, but Alice smiled when she pulled away.

"Merry Christmas, Otto."

* * *

Christmas Day, 1944

The air was frozen and still in the mountains, the sun a bright, cold spot in the sky. Steve and his team trudged up a snow-laden lane between dark pine trees. Their boots squeaked in the fresh snow, and their panting breaths evaporated in the air.

Steve adjusted his shield on his back and looked around. There was no sign of any humanity around. Up here, the war didn't seem real. He turned back up the lane and walked on.

Half an hour later pale grey clouds crept over the mountains, and soon it began to snow. White fractals landed around them, cold shocks on their skin. The tall, snow-laden pine trees to either side seemed to absorb all sound.

"Morita?" Steve asked. The sound of his voice was almost a shock - they'd been more silent than usual, taking in the sweeping mountain terrain.

Morita checked the map in his hands. "Almost there. Should be around the next bend."

"I sure hope so," Dugan complained. "I'm freezing my mustache off here. This place is well hidden."

They turned the corner, and Bucky spotted it first. "There," he pointed.

Steve followed his finger, and his eyes widened. A cabin sat up ahead, so loaded with snow that it appeared to be a part of the mountainside. His keen eyes picked out the details: a stone foundation with dark pineboard walls, and glass windows peeking out from the snow-caked exterior.

"Someone's home," Gabe noted. A lick of smoke curled out of the chimney, barely visible.

Steve tensed. "We're sure this is the place?" They hadn't had much in the way of instructions for this mission.

Morita nodded.

Steve took the lead. He trudged through the bare snow and then up the cabin's steps, his boots silent on the icy stone. He approached the front door warily, his eyes darting, then paused. His men arrayed behind him, some on the steps and some covering the sides of the cabin.

Steve tried the handle, and the door swung inward. He didn't need to wait for his eyes to adjust to the relative darkness inside, but he did have to wait for his brain to process.

Alice stood inside the foyer, wearing a green tartan dress and a brilliant smile. A thick cloak hung on the wall beside her. Seeing Steve's shock, her smile widened.

"I thought it'd take you forever to finally come in," she beamed. The other men of the 107th Tactical Team appeared in the doorway behind Steve, and she leaned to the side to take them in. "Merry Christmas!"

* * *

The mountain cabin was warm and cozy inside, with bare wood and leather couches and a blazing fire in the grate. Long windows looked out down the mountainside, with views of the dark swathes of pine forest and the distant mountains wrapped by clouds.

After the initial bustle of getting inside, the 107th Tactical Team now sat around in the main room of the cabin, taking a well earned rest. Dugan had taken off his shoes and socks and was now warming his feet by the fire, while Gabe and Morita complained. Falsworth and Dernier had raided the booze cabinet and liberated a bottle of brandy. Bucky was the only one not resting - he'd gone to scout the perimeter and identify all the exits and hiding places.

Alice sat with one leg tucked up under herself on the wooden ledge by the wide windows, her posture relaxed but an utterly thrilled look on her face. Her eyes roved over the men in the cabin, glinting with amusement. Steve sat beside her, with his cowl in his hands and his shield leaning against the wall.

"But how did you arrange this?" Steve asked, gesturing at the cabin. "Where does everyone think you are?"

"Everyone knows that I'm right here," Alice explained, her green eyes turning on him. "This chalet belongs to Otto's production company, and he requisitioned it for my use alone for a few days. As far as the Propaganda Department and the Gestapo are concerned, I'm off on my own for a mountain retreat."

Steve's brow furrowed.

Alice smiled. "I've done it before. While my uncle was still alive I spent Christmas and New Years at a mountain lodge in Austria after helping a family flee east. I wanted to see if anyone paid attention to what I was doing, and I figured out that with the right excuse, I can disappear for a few days. Besides, everyone's getting out of the cities over the holidays thanks to all the bombing."

Steve let out a breath.

Alice continued: "And we've set up a lookout further downhill, they'll call if they see anyone - Germans or otherwise - approaching. And if that happens, you lot can all go hide outside in the cold." She winked.

Steve beamed, and reached across to take her hands. He felt strange now in his full uniform. He'd been expecting a few days of harsh camping, not… this. He met Alice's eyes. He thought back to the small French church in the middle of the night, and his heart skipped. He'd carried that night with him every day since, waiting for the end of the war. Being apart felt even more cruelly unfair than it had before. "I can't believe we can just… spend time together."

She smiled back and his heart seemed to shiver. "I know! But this is _technically _a mission, may I remind you, so I have some intelligence to pass along."

"Okay."

"Not yet," she smiled. "I want to properly say hello to everyone first."

At that, the main room's door swung inward to reveal Bucky. Cold radiated off him and there was snow in his hair, but he seemed satisfied. Alice strode over to envelop him in a hug.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Tired. We've been fighting in the Ardennes."

"I heard about that," she frowned. "It sounded like hard fighting."

"They stopped the advance yesterday, though," said Morita from the fireplace. "Now we can get back to pushing in toward Germany."

"Can't wait," Alice nodded. "So how are you all? What trouble have you been up to?"

They all congregated in the couches around the fire to chat, sharing the brandy and slowly easing out of their uniforms. The 107th Tactical Team had no end of stories to share, making Alice laugh and groan.

Twenty minutes in, Steve shucked off the top of his uniform all together, leaving him in his tan cotton undershirt. Gabe was mucking around with his shield, spinning it on his finger like a top as Dugan told the story of their most recent HYDRA base raid, complete with descriptions of their disguises and all. Alice was laughing, gripping Steve's arm as if she'd fall off the couch without him.

Steve watched quietly, letting the scene sweep over him. He had a glimpse now of how it was going to be after the war: He and Alice, side by side, a team in normality. They'd have a couch of their own where they could sit together like this, with Alice's legs tucked up so her socked feet rested just under his thigh. They might have their friends over, and it'd be just like this.

There wouldn't be a need for secrets or war, but he just knew that Alice's mind wouldn't let her stop: whether she'd leave him secret morse code messages around the house, or go off during the days to whatever high-flying job she'd earned, he knew it would be something. He couldn't wait to find out.

His hand found hers and she glanced away from Dernier, who was talking now, to smile at him. She must have sensed the direction his thoughts had gone, because her smile softened and her thumb swept over the back of his hand.

Her gaze shifted to the men around the fire. "We'd best get the mission stuff out of the way," she said, her eyes on the brandy bottle. "Before we all enjoy ourselves too much. And after, I can show you all what I got you for Christmas."

A chorus of interested murmurs followed that, but Alice just smiled. "Follow me."

She rose from the couch, her fingers slipping out of Steve's, and led them all out of the main room and up to another room, slightly smaller but with a massive window looking out over the snowy mountainside. This room was mostly occupied by a large table surrounded by chairs; a record player sat in the corner, and the walls were lined with bookshelves. Steve remembered that this was a company cabin, so they must have equipped it for meetings. There were papers already spread across the table.

Joking and jostling, they all took their seats.

At the head of the table, Alice spread her palms across the arrayed papers. She waited until silence had fallen before drawing in a breath and beginning to speak.

"As you know, we've been working on HYDRA's wider operations for some time. I'm not sure what intelligence the SSR has already - Steve, I know you pinpointed a few HYDRA bases when you got a look at their map last year - but this is what we have."

With that, she rolled a map of Europe across the table. The edges were frayed and the paper marked with hundreds of fold-lines, and Steve's eyebrows rose at the number of pencil markings scrawled across it. His eyes were drawn to the red-taped triangles with black '_H_'s stencilled inside them.

"To start with," Alice said as they all leaned forward with wide eyes. "We've identified three of their major factories. Here in East Germany, one here in Poland, and another in Czechoslovakia. In here" - she gestured to a short stack of papers - "is the intelligence on how we determined those locations, and some additional information we've gathered about each factory. There are HYDRA outposts and warehouses dependent on these factories, but we figure hitting the big ones first is the way to go."

"You _have _been busy," Steve said wonderingly, letting his gaze track across the marked-out map. "Do you think any of these are the main base?"

"Unfortunately, no," Alice said. "Its location is a closely guarded secret, and there's little transfer of soldiers there, so there's no one to ask, really. What I _can _tell you about the main base is that it has to be very far removed from any civilian centers. It's probably up in the mountains, like this cabin. We've guessed that they get their supplies from plane drops."

Bucky nodded, scratching his chin. "Carter and Phillips reckon we won't pin down the location unless we can catch one of the leaders alive."

"Well, HYDRA purchases of cyanide continue to go strong," Alice grimaced. "But! Otto and I think we're onto something with this" - she selected another piece of paper from her various piles and slid it to the center of the table. Steve, like everyone else, stretched forward. The paper was scrawled with numbers and notes: it looked like a list of radio frequencies, with notations about times and dates.

"This is everything we've figured out about HYDRA's radio communications in each country in Europe. All transmissions are encrypted, but we've figured out some things about their patterns and cryptology. You can read all that on the back."

Steve turned the paper over and his eyebrows rose at the detailed notes.

"So you should be able to listen to HYDRA's radio communications _most _of the time with that. Use it wisely."

Steve slid the paper to Gabe, who ran a more focused eye over the frequencies. 'This is… this is _great. _How'd you figure all this out?"

"Lots of listening to the radio," Alice shrugged. "Lots of getting my friends in other countries to listen to the radio. It's taken a while."

"Hopefully we can pin down some higher-ups with this," Dugan said. "They've been using radio more often to coordinate their movements."

Alice nodded, then continued talking over her and Otto's map. Steve couldn't believe the detail - if HYDRA knew that anyone had managed to scour out so much information about them, they'd be running scared.

Finally, Alice seemed to run out of papers and notes, and sank into her seat.

"Anything else?" Bucky asked with a smile in his voice.

Alice narrowed her eyes at him. "That's everything I can prove. But…" she sighed, suddenly seeming much younger. "I don't know, things have been looking better for the Allies in the war, but all I get from HYDRA are whispers, really, and they're concerning to say the least. They're planning something big. They talk about world cleansing and domination like the rest of the Nazis, but… I don't know, it's like they think they can actually _do it. _The Nazis still talk big, but not in realistic terms anymore." She shrugged. "All I'm saying, I guess, is don't count them out. We might be hitting them hard, but they've got something big planned."

"We won't underestimate them," Steve said seriously.

A long silence fell, as they all looked at the map strewn with red triangles.

Dugan cleared his throat. "You mentioned a Christmas present?"

Alice's weariness instantly slipped away, and her eyes glinted. "I hope you're all hungry."

* * *

When Alice presented the two whole turkeys, sausages, bread, and vegetables she'd brought with her up to the mountains, the 107th Tactical Team practically drooled right there on the kitchen floor.

"I thought we could have a proper Christmas dinner," she said, emboldened by their excitement but still seeming uncertain. "I know we don't have long here, but-"

"It's perfect," Steve cut her off. She met his eyes, and saw him trying to hold back everything he felt, to make his tone seem even.

"We didn't bring anything for you!" Dugan frowned.

"I can't bring anything back with me anyway," Alice shrugged. "Your Christmas present to me can be the last HYDRA factory in smoking ruins." Her mouth quirked. "I don't mind if it's a bit late."

"_Je boirai à ça_!" [_I'll drink to that!_] exclaimed Dernier, who had liberated a bottle of brandy from the liquor cabinet.

With the whole afternoon ahead of them, the 107th Tactical Team set about properly relaxing. Some of them napped with open mouths and loud snores right in the main room, but most decided that the lodge could do with some decorations. They went and fetched pine cones to array around the fireplace, and rustled up a dusty box of candles to illuminate the main room. Dugan, Gabe, and Dernier ended up on the front porch building a snowman, and Alice laughed as she watched them from the kitchen window.

Steve came to stand in the kitchen door, his arms folded, watching Alice prepare the Christmas dinner. "Let me help."

"Well alright then," she said agreeably. "You can cut the potatoes." She pointed her knife at him. "But don't expect this all the time. This is a special occasion. I know you can cook, and I'll not be some homebody wife doting on you hand and foot."

He laughed at the mental image as he went to wash the potatoes. He couldn't help the skip of his heart as Alice called herself his wife. "Alice, if you think that's what I married you for," his voice dipped and he drew nearer. "You must think I'm an idiot."

"Well I know you're not an idiot," she smiled, and leaned up to kiss him.

Bucky stuck his head in the kitchen. "At this rate we won't eat until New Years! Work, woman!"

Alice dove for her knife, and Bucky fled.

Thankfully, the Christmas dinner landed on the dining table with no bloodshed. Falsworth said grace, and then the men dug into the mouth-watering food with as much politeness as they were capable of. Alice and Steve held hands on top of the table, and weathered the teasing from the rest of the team with smiles.

The men each gave Alice presents in their own way: Morita poured her interesting and colorful drinks, Dugan presented her with a bouquet of pine cones and pine needles, and Gabe turned on his radio to find the closest station playing Christmas carols. Falsworth did the washing up. Dernier danced her around the table to the French version of _Winter Wonderland. _

They spilled out into the main room by the fireplace, and Dugan, Gabe, and Dernier sang a loud and off-key version of _White Christmas_ while Morita showed Alice the card that each of them (at least, those of them that were American) had gotten from General Patton for Christmas.

Each of them reminisced about Christmases long past, comparing the differences and similarities across the different regions they came from. Alice told them all about the _Boy's Handy Book _she'd gotten one Christmas, and the Christmas where she'd gotten to sing live on the radio for the first time. She, Bucky, and Steve described the lights of the massive tree at Rockefeller Center. Falsworth waxed poetic about Christmas puddings, and Dernier told them that he'd once been Mary in a nativity performance when he was a boy.

As the drinking songs and effusive Christmas wishes began to subside, the men started to drift out of the dining room. Alice sat full and happy, pink-cheeked from the drinks and warmth, watching them all yawn and head off to bed.

When just she, Steve, and Bucky remained, she reached under the couch and pulled up a package wrapped in brown paper. The edges were square, but the top was crumpled, bulky.

"How on earth did you manage to bring all this with you?" Bucky exclaimed when he saw the package. Steve just laughed under his breath.

"I'm a good packer," Alice replied evenly, then handed the package to Steve and Bucky. "Now you have to keep this secret, since I only had room for presents for you two."

Steve took the package with a smile. "We've done alright with keeping secrets so far." He pulled apart the paper and looked down. "Is this… a hat?"

"Oh, that's Bucky's."

Steve handed the dark blue knit hat to Bucky with an amused look, and Bucky instantly jammed it onto his head.

"No Morse code," Alice smiled. "I just thought you might get cold."

Bucky touched the hat, running his fingers over the close-knit pattern. "It'll muck up my hair."

"Freeze, then."

Steve had pulled out the other item in the package, a book with a colorful cover. He read the title, smiling. "_The Art of the Renaissance_."

"I noticed that the only books you had in your tent were about war," Alice shrugged. "I figured while you're in Europe, you should make the most of the art history here. I tried to find a small book, I know it might be too bulky for you to-"

Eyes warm and alive with light, Steve leaned over to cut her off with a kiss. Bucky pulled his new hat over his eyes.

When they pulled apart, Bucky cleared his throat. "What a _shame _none of us thought to get you presents."

"Like I said, I don't mind-" but Alice cut herself off when Bucky reached into his pocket and produced something wrapped in a handkerchief.

"Merry Christmas, troublemaker."

"But how did you-"

"We guessed you might be on this mission," Steve explained. "We thought we'd bring along our presents just in case."

Touched, Alice took the handkerchief-wrapped something from Bucky and carefully pulled back the folds. Her eyes widened at the contents: a fine wooden hilt with a metal catch. She thumbed the catch, and nearly jumped as a stiletto blade flicked out, gleaming in the firelight.

"It's an Italian Rosewood Bayonet Stiletto knife," Bucky explained. "Picked it up in Sicily ages ago, but I've never used it since I usually end up just shooting people. I noticed a couple missions ago that your knife is busted" - Alice's eyes flicked up from the gift, reproachful, but he went on - "and I thought you could make better use of that than me."

Alice tilted the blade, watching the light gleam off the sharpened edges. It was beautifully made. This wasn't a slashing or hacking knife: it was made for slipping deep into a person's chest, severing and puncturing. Alice carefully pressed the blade back into the hilt. "Thank you, Bucky." She slipped the knife into her pocket.

"Steve got you something sharp too," Bucky said, nodding toward Steve, who went pink. Alice smiled.

Steve opened his closed fist, revealing a fine, glittering hairpin. Alice's heart skipped. The pin was steel, narrowed to a finer, sharper point than even the knife, with a jewelled dash of black and electric blue at the other end. Alice instantly recognised it as an answer to the tag on the scarf she'd given him: the colors evoked the vibrant wings of a Ulysses butterfly.

"It's not a ring," Steve murmured. "But I figure you'd be able to take this with you."

Alice's fingers landed on Steve's palm, curling over the pin. It had been warmed by his body temperature. Carefully, she lifted the pin to the light, then stretched to pin it into the knot at the back of her curled hair. She felt the weight of it and smiled. "Thank you," she murmured.

"Anyone up for an Irish coffee?" Bucky said pointedly, getting to his feet and heading to the kitchen. Alice and Steve said nothing.

Bucky made sure to take his time in the kitchen.

When the fire had burned down into red glowing coals, and the wind outside kicked up against the dark windows, Alice and Steve leaned back together on the couch, her head on his chest and his feet hanging off the end of the couch. Bucky was still clattering in the kitchen.

Steve's fingers carded through Alice's hair, messing up her curls. She didn't mind.

Alice wished every night could end like this: warm, safe, she and Steve together in each other's arms. To most people that wouldn't seem like a lot to ask, but with the life Alice had lived, she knew better. She knew it was something worth fighting wars for. She found her mind turning, as it often had lately, to the future.

"When it's all over," she murmured, the first words they'd spoken in a while, "Peggy's promised me an evacuation. A free ticket for me, wherever I want to go."

Steve eyed her knowingly. "You're not going to take it."

"I might!" she said indignantly. "But I'd have to make sure everyone else is okay first. Otto, Vano, Hugo, all of them. They should be alright under the Allies, but I can't just leave the minute the war ends. Besides, who knows what's going to happen in Vienna."

"You'll be in danger," Steve said. The words rumbled through his chest, under her ear. "The Allies only know you as a Nazi sympathizer."

"I'll get out before they can get me, don't worry. I'll lay low until it's all settled. And then - America. There's a pardon from FDR himself with my name on it."

Steve propped himself up on one elbow. "Wait, really?"

"Yes. My citizenship's a little iffy, since I got rid of all mentions of it I could find, but I figure a presidential pardon's got to go a long way."

Bucky's voice suddenly emerged over their heads: "I'm sure being married to Captain America can't hurt either."

Alice blinked up at Bucky, who carried a steaming mug as he smirked down at them. She turned to Steve. "That's right. I won't… this won't have to be a secret." She'd been so used to keeping their marriage safe in her own head, that the idea of walking down the road hand in hand with him or turning to someone and saying 'this is my husband, Steve' had been such an impossible dream. A grin spread across her face.

"It's not far off, now," Steve promised. He watched her with blazing eyes.

"I can't wait to see the looks on people's faces back home when they hear you two are married," Bucky said almost gleefully. "My sisters are going to lose their minds." He glanced back down at them and sipped his whiskey-laced drink. "But for now, I'm going to head to bed." He raised his eyebrows. "You two should think about doing the same."

And with one last teasing glance, he left the main room.

Alice and Steve met each other's eyes, her draped over him like a blanket and him with his head propped on one hand.

Alice grinned. "Well, Captain Rogers. Shall we?"

"You know what, Mrs Rogers, I think we just might."

* * *

Boxing Day arrived sleepy and slow. Alice and the 107th Tactical Team spent the day snoozing by the fire and occasionally going outside to shiver in the brisk cold wind and squint out at the bright sunshine over the mountains. Alice and Steve moved in each other's orbit, able to pretend for a day that there was no war.

They all left the next morning, Alice back to Vienna and the rest of them to London.

Alice was tired of goodbyes. She went the rounds of the team, thanking them for their presents and their time, and wishing them luck. She was leaving first, so none of them had packed yet. Bucky reminded her to use her knife if she needed to, and she fondly touched the hat which he'd barely taken off since Christmas Day.

"Be safe, troublemaker. We'll see you soon."

Steve walked her down the snowy path to where she'd hidden a truck by the road.

"I can't wait until the last time we have to say goodbye," she murmured, her arms looped around Steve's neck. Steve held her tighter, his face tucked against hers and his heart beating under her palms. This mission had felt, strangely, like the denouement of this great war story they'd been working through.

Steve held her close for too long, until they were both shaky and too wrung out for speech. Instead, when they pulled apart, Steve just cupped her jaw with his hand and kissed her, his lips cold from the frozen air but his hands warm from holding her.

They didn't say goodbye.

* * *

She arrived in Berlin on New Years Eve, though the tone in the city wasn't celebratory. The people were tired of the constant bombing, with seemingly no resistance by the _Luftwaffe_, scared of the loss at the Ardennes and the loss of Aachen, the first major German city to be lost to the Allies.

Otto was waiting for her at her apartment, with a bottle of champagne and a tired smile. "Happy New Year, Alice."

She pulled him into a hug. "Happy New Year, Otto."

* * *

Excerpt from '_The Fall of Berlin_' by Marianne Thomas (1992):

… _at the opening of 1945, Germany's fate was practically sealed. Their counterattack in Belgium had failed, and there were millions of Red Army soldiers gathering along the River Vistula in Poland. Hitler had expressly forbidden commanders in the field from retreating. _

_Anyone in Berlin not completely swayed by the 'stay strong' propaganda would have been right to feel very, very worried._

* * *

January, 1945

Alice had a performance tour through Berlin planned for the whole month. She swept through performance halls and theatres, hotel ballrooms and mansion entertainment rooms, using her voice to spread joy, and hope, and heartbreak. Alice had long ago come to terms with the fact that no matter who her audience was, part of her would always love to sing.

Now that she and Otto had passed on their major intelligence packet on HYDRA, they turned their attention to collecting information to fill in the gaps.

Berlin became a place of shadows and sickly fear: beneath every conversation was an undercurrent of paranoia, a sense of impending doom. Life moved in normal patterns, but everyone knew it could not last forever. The Soviets were slamming through on the east at a terrifyingly fast pace, and the Allies were battling to get over the Rur river on the west.

The Propaganda Department was fiercely determined to keep up the German spirit: they spread lies and propaganda and wrung the finest singing out of the Siren. The Propaganda Department secretary, Inge, was annoying: always scowling at Alice when she visited, digging into Alice's affairs as if Alice wouldn't be able to tell. Alice and Otto gently redirected her efforts, relying on the Propaganda Department's complete lack of faith in women and the fact that Inge didn't really _know _anything.

There was nowhere left outside of Germany and Austria for Alice to tour; she knew that her role now was to sit here in the heart of it all, bleeding them dry from the inside.

It was harder to learn about HYDRA from Berlin, but that didn't mean that Alice couldn't try. She circled the people she suspected of being HYDRA plants in the Nazis, enticing them with fine song and lavish parties.

The 107th Tactical Team had travelled over to the Soviet front, from what Alice could tell; hunting out the HYDRA factory in Poland. As the aftershocks from their fighting on the east spread through Europe, and she heard more whispers in Berlin, Alice passed on a message to Peggy that it might be worth taking a long look at Switzerland. In her next message back, along with more orders, Peggy wrote: _Good work, Agent Homer._

Alice missed her friend.

Alice's network through what remained of the Third Reich was going strong, though many of her operatives were scared. _What happens to us, when the tide rolls in? _Alice began setting up safety nets.

* * *

One evening, just like any other, Alice went for a walk. She went as Alice, in her long winter coat, just after dusk. Her breath came in puffs of condensation, and she watched the sky closely. The Flak towers didn't always notice the bombers until they were right on top of the city.

With a newspaper tucked under her arm, Alice strolled down the street. She passed a shop and ducked in to buy some Bratwurst. She sat down in the small park near her house with the steaming hot sausage and her newspaper, admiring the night sky. The air was cold on her skin, reminding her of distant forests in winter and snow-laden rooves.

Once she'd finished the Bratwurst she took a circuitous route home and dropped her newspaper in an alley she passed, as if she were too lazy to find a trash can. She checked her watch - her courier would be by at 9 to check the alleyway for an information drop. He'd see the paper.

The drop was nothing she hadn't done before, a mere shade of risk compared to the danger she'd been in dozens of times.

She did not see the blue eyes watching from the darkness.

* * *

Late January, 1945

Alice was growing tired of her white Siren dress. Heidi had made alterations and adjustments to it as the months went on, but Alice found the trailing sleeves cumbersome, and the bodice too close-fitting to be comfortable. Heidi had left for Poland a month ago, too far to make any changes. But Alice knew the effect the outfit gave.

She could see it now, as she performed an aria at a performance hall by the Spree river. The lights made the white fabric of her dress luminescent, eye-catching, and she knew that with her pale hair and the green accents in her jewellery that matched her eyes she looked, as she often did, slightly otherworldly. She had no backup singers tonight, so she stood alone in the stage lights. The hairpin from Steve was tucked into the back of her hair, a reminder in plain sight, and the knife from Bucky rested under her skirts.

Alice cast her eyes over her audience: roughly four hundred or so, mostly affiliated with the army, gathered in this building in the heart of Berlin for a performance intended as a celebration of the war. They'd taken over the whole building, as there was meant to be feasting and partying long into the night. All a pretense: Alice knew there was little to celebrate in Berlin these days.

Alice let the color and dazzle of her finely-dressed audience wash over her as she sang her way through a series of high staccatoed notes. She kept her audience captive with a simultaneously held breath. Her skin prickled with the sensation of being _seen. _As always when she sang the lights around her seemed brighter, the air warmer, a dizzying golden moment. It had been this way since she was young.

She felt rich tonight: she was healthy, had a husband who loved her a dizzying amount, and a future before her. She thought of Tom. If he ever forgave her, she thought, she'd like to sing with him again. And she'd wear whatever she pleased. _I just have to wait and see what comes next._

Alice wrapped her fingers around the microphone and smiled down at her audience - not a bright beam but a sly, mysterious smile. She saw a few men in the front row sway forward in their seats. Her voice sank down through two octaves before ricocheting right back up, and Alice gave a real smile, enjoying the notes she twisted and crested over.

_Yes_, she thought. _I'm looking forward to what comes next._

* * *

Alice didn't go straight back to her dressing room after the performance ended. With applause still ringing in her ears, she waited until no one was looking and then deviated into a stairwell, heading for the sixth floor. She didn't pass a soul. On the sixth floor she located a quiet corridor, and then checked a loose brick halfway down which one of her couriers sometimes used. But when she slid the white-painted brick out of the wall, the hole was empty. She shrugged, returned the brick, and then went back to the stairwell, dusting her hands off.

In the stairwell again she heard the rumble and clatter of footsteps as most of her audience went down to the main dining hall. Shivering slightly in the cool air, Alice made her way to the seventh floor and then headed for her dressing room. This floor seemed practically empty.

She found the dressing room door and slid inside with a yawn, making sure the door was shut behind her.

Alice turned, and a cry burst free of her mouth.

Otto lay sprawled on the floor. She only knew it was him because she recognised his clothes, since he lay face down. The hair on the back of his head was slick and dark like the ocean at night, and Alice _knew_. He did not move.

"Otto," she croaked. She knew.

Alice had slammed herself back against the closed door at the sight of him, but even as her heart seized and a shivery feeling emanated from her stomach, she rushed to Otto and turned him over. She instantly leaned backwards, the back of her hand over her mouth as her eyes blurred with tears.

Otto had been shot in the face. His familiar, grizzled expression had become an open mess of blood. The dark metal smell of it filled Alice's nostrils and her stomach twisted, heaved. Her shaking hand found the side of his face, as if she might rouse him, and his blood smeared under her fingers. His skin was still warm. But his eyes were blank, blank like the men Alice had killed. She knew what eyes with no life inside them looked like.

She heard a dull _clunk_ and realized that Otto's necklace - the one bearing his wedding band - had slipped out of his tightly-buttoned shirt and thudded to the floor.

Alice squeezed her eyes shut to blank away the sight of him, and to clear her eyes of tears, before she swung her gaze wildly about the room. Otto's gun lay a few feet away, the chamber empty, and she glanced down to see grazes on his hands. _He fought them._

Looking down at Otto, her handler, her friend, Alice realized: _I need to run._

A warmer woman might have delayed for a moment, pressed her lips to her fallen friend's forehead, maybe wept over him. Might have said goodbye.

Alice did not.

Moments later she burst out of the dressing room, having kicked off her heels, and heard footsteps to her left. She glanced down the corridor and her eyes widened at the sight of Inge; bitter, determined Inge in her _SS-Gelfolge _uniform, her eyes widening, flanked by two Gestapo officers.

Inge pointed at Alice. "_There she is!_"

Alice's gut dropped. Inge's face was alive with vindication and something akin to glee, and Alice _knew_.

(She did not know about the file Inge had compiled on _Die Sirene _for over a month, about the nights Inge had spent watching her apartment, the places and people Inge had connected her with. She did not know that the newspaper full of German army radio frequencies she'd dropped last night had been intercepted by Inge. Inge barely knew a percentage of what Alice was up to, but she knew enough. Enough, at least, to tempt the paranoid, angry Gestapo.)

Alice fled in the other direction, leaving Inge's pointing finger and victorious eyes behind her. At the other end of the corridor she ran almost directly into another Gestapo officer, who had burst around the corner. He was tall and broad, in the dark grey uniform with the Reich's eagle on his right breast. He and Alice were both surprised to find themselves practically in each other's arms.

"Help me," Alice wept, pressing all her fear and desperation into her voice but smoothing it out to be feminine, helpless.

For a moment the officer's arms circled a little further around her, his face furrowed with surprise and confusion.

He was more surprised, though, when he felt Alice's stiletto knife slide between his ribs and into his heart.

He dropped, and Alice, with more blood on her hands, ran. She zig-zagged through corridors, listening to shouts and running footsteps. She couldn't tell from where. Her bare feet were quiet on the richly carpeted corridors. She turned onto a corridor right in front of another Gestapo officer, who had his hand on his gun holster. Alice wanted to flee but she forced herself forward, running him down.

"_Frau Sirene, halt-_" the officer shouted, and his eyes flicked down to her knife. So Alice didn't use the knife.

_Keep your knees bent, point your chest, push off your back foot and punch through - _with a vision of a skinny, hollow-chested boy with bandages wrapped around his knuckles, Alice launched up and slammed her left fist into the man's face. His head reeled back.

_What's more important than learning how to throw a punch? _Bucky's memory asked her. _Learning how to dodge one._

Alice ducked under the man's instinctive retaliatory swing, and that gave her the opening to slide past him and slam the knife into his back; it jarred against bone and slipped, but the man cried out and dropped, leaving the knife slick and red in her hand.

She ran down the rest of the corridor's length, and paused this time before running down the next one toward the closest stairwell.

When she could hear anything over the sound of her own thundering heart, she screwed her eyes shut at the sound of men's voices: "_We have all the ground exits covered._" The man's voice was calm, if intrigued. She supposed they hadn't heard that she'd been seen yet.

Alice grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, thinking. The man she'd left bleeding at the other end of the corridor groaned. Alice's fear seemed to catch up with her and her chest shuddered, her fingers growing numb on her knife.

_No matter how ready I thought I was for this, _she thought, _I was wrong._

She dug her fingernails into her palms. She had little left but her knowledge and her speed. Her go bag in her apartment? Forget it. Her carefully laid extraction plans? It was all so far away from this bloody corridor.

She knew the men searching for her wouldn't have prepared for much resistance - a singer and her agent, how dangerous could they be? She had less than a minute before the word spread that she was on the run with a knife, and their hunt for her became a lot more dangerous.

She wasn't fool enough to believe that she could fight her way out through the crowded ground floor lobby with its guarded exits. _So, _she told herself, trying to inject her thoughts with calm. _You really only have one direction to go, don't you?_

Alice wheeled and ran back the way she'd come.

She made it all the way to the staff stairwell without running into any more officers, by pausing before she turned each corridor and listening for voices and footsteps. She knew this building well, after performing in it for years - she only hoped that she knew the building better than the Gestapo.

The door handle to the staff stairwell jammed under her bloody hand, making her heart stutter, but then it gave way and she spilled onto the cold stone stairs. She slammed the door shut behind her and began racing _up._ Two floors up, her foot came down on the edge of her draping white skirt and she pitched forward. Not wanting to land on her knife, she fell painfully on her left knee and elbow, crying out at the _crash _of pain. Energy fizzed through her, hot and stifling.

She heaved to her feet, leaving a bloody handprint on the wall, and at that moment the door a floor above her crashed open. Alice's heart seized.

A pair of Gestapo officers ran into the stairwell, and in the first moment they did not see her. _They must be scouring the building now. _Alice's breath rasped in her throat and her heart hammered in her ears, but she set her foot on the next step and pressed _up _toward them. She could not turn back.

The officers turned at the sound of her breathing, and when their eyes landed on her Alice knew: _they know I've killed their colleagues._

The one on the left, slightly larger and with the black cross of a senior officer, opened his mouth to speak, and Alice swung her knife at him. He blocked it easily by grabbing her wrist, and a punch that she hadn't even seen landed against the side of her chest. She gasped at the starburst of pain and the officer tugged her forward by the wrist, sending her stumbling onto the landing.

These men were older, veterans maybe - they knew the value of moving fast.

_If it comes to a fight, we're not banking on you surviving for long_, said Peggy in her mind, her eyes calm. _I'm going to teach you how to kill fast, and hard. Ready?_

Alice slammed her foot down onto the officer's instep and in the same moment twisted her wrist free. She drove her knife up under the man's jaw and felt his scream reverberating in her fingers. She pushed him away from her but the knife went with him, slipping out of her bloody hands.

The other officer reached for his gun, snarling. Alice slammed her fist right into his throat - she didn't hit as hard as she'd meant to, but the man reeled back a step. Alice did not give him an inch. Her movements weren't smooth or well-honed, she was desperately flinging herself against him with her heart in her mouth. She slammed the hard bones at the edge of her hand against the corner of his jaw, he dropped to his knees, and then she struck again with all her momentum into his temple - and he dropped.

_That's the strike I'd go for if I only had one chance._

Alice's breath came in sobs now, and she felt half-blind from tears and the sweat rolling into her eyes. She crouched, groaning at the pain in her knee, pulled her knife free of the first officer, and then took off running up the stairs again.

When she burst through the door to the roof, she didn't pause to gasp down the blessedly cold air. She turned and jammed her knife into the handle, then backed away from the door, chest heaving.

The wind blew cold and fast up here, and when she turned around the night sky yawned wide above her and the light of the city glowed softly for miles around. The lights were muted to lessen the target offered to bombers, and the softness of it all made Alice's breath catch. The roof was twelve stories up. The sound of cars and people in the streets below seemed distant. The river Spree stretched through it all, cutting right beside the building.

Alice's body thrummed with adrenaline, pain, and horror. Her dress was torn and stained with streaks of blood, matching her scarlet hands. Her hair had come loose, strewn by the breeze around her tear-stained face. Now that she'd completed her race up the stairs she felt pain spike in her knee and elbow, and in her chest where she'd been punched.

She could still hear shouts and footsteps distantly, perhaps echoes from the stairwell.

Alice knew what would happen to her if she was captured. They would torture and murder her. She saw what they'd done to Otto, and that was because he'd fought back. She knew that they would want to take her alive, to learn what she knew.

The SSR wouldn't be suspicious of her absence for at least a few days, and by that point she'd be dead or worse.

_There's no help coming. _It was just Alice. Alone. On a rooftop.

Alice thought suddenly of Peggy's compassionate face when she had taught her how to kill herself, and the heat surging through her abruptly froze. She glanced at the knife jamming the rooftop door, gleaming darkly.

She turned away from the knife and went to the edge of the roof, pausing a foot away from the low stone barrier. Her ripped, bloody dress fluttered around her ankles. She looked down.

The dark void of the river stretched beneath her. Jumping from this height would surely kill her - perhaps not the best method of ending her life, but she didn't think she could face the knife. _I'm sorry, Peggy._

A tear spilled off the end of her nose and fell, glittering as it plunged into the darkness. Her fingers clenched on air.

Fragments of thought spun across her mind: Tom's eager face. How it had felt to stand atop the Empire State Building with the wind in her face and the world beneath her. A drawing of a ring that she would never see.

A wind gust blew up the side of the building and into her face, making her gasp. She blinked away her tears, and when her eyes opened they alighted on the buildings across the river. On the other side the buildings stretched just as high as this one, save for one: she could see a rooftop a few floors down, illuminated by the warm golden light from the windows of the buildings to either side.

Alice's breath hitched, and she eyed the river. It was narrow here, maybe a few yards across.

_Maybe… _she judged distances and heights, pacing, until she realized it didn't matter. _Either I make it, and use that rooftop to escape. Or I don't make it. And that's an end in itself._

Alice thought suddenly of the opera heroine Tosca, who'd thrown herself from a towertop, and then of Brunnhilde, the role she'd never played, who'd thrown herself into an inferno to cleanse the world of a curse. Alice's heart pounded.

_What is it about women who meet a violent end that calls to you, Siren?_

Alice's pacing fell still. Her breath evened out. _Maybe I always knew it would come to this. _

The rooftop door rattled behind her and Alice's fingernails clenched into her palms. Her eyes fixed on open air. She drew in a long, deep breath.

_I'm sorry, Steve._

She ran, pelting full speed for the edge of the roof, her bare feet slapping on the stone and her eyes fixed ahead. She set one foot on the low stone barrier and _leaped._

Her dress snapped about her like white satin wings and the air screamed in her ears and her heart swooped. A wild thought: _I'm going to make it_ -

But then her vision was lost in a burst of golden light.

* * *

_**~ My name is Bragi ~** _


	49. Chapter Forty

Two Days Later

At the SSR offices in Whitehall, Peggy looked up from a mission report as one of her intelligence officers walked by.

"Williams, did we get that intelligence brief in from Agent Homer and Agent Badger?"

"No, Agent Carter, they missed the check-in."

"Hm. Nothing they haven't done before. Let's give it another day or two before making contact."

* * *

Six Days Later

"What do you mean you haven't had anything from the drop sites in a _week_?"

* * *

Poster displayed in Berlin by the Propaganda Department, January 1945 [Translated]:

_January 30th (Tuesday), see THE SIREN at Treptower Park for a live outdoor performance!_

_NOTICE: CANCELED_

* * *

Eight Days Later

"Colonel Phillips, I'm requesting permission to send an agent into Berlin. Homer and Badger's network in the city is crumbling and I'm not sure why, and we haven't had contact with them for some time. They haven't sent out any emergency alerts, though."

"Go ahead. I'll handle Rogers and his lot."

* * *

January 31st, 1945

At a camp in the east of France, Steve paced back and forth through a groove he'd tamped out in the thick snow. Bucky sat on a rock nearby, his collar turned up against the wind and his chin on his fist.

"I want to go to Berlin."

"You know why we can't do that, Steve-"

"Well someone has to do _something_," Steve urged. "Who knows how long she's been missing?"

They'd found out four days ago. When a report they'd been expecting on HYDRA's factories in East Germany didn't arrive, they'd reached out to the SSR, and got the stomach-dropping news that no one had heard from Alice or Otto in days. Apparently the intelligence wing of the SSR was going nuts trying to find them, and Peggy was working every angle and resource she had.

But orders were orders, and they had a mission. They'd travelled up to the Alps again after Gabe had used the frequencies Alice had given them at Christmas to figure out that Zola was going to be moving through the Swiss alps tomorrow. They had an intercept plan set up, but Steve wasn't thinking about that right now.

"Believe me, Steve, I want to go and make sure she's okay just as much as you do," said Bucky frustratedly. "But we would _not _blend in in Berlin, and the SSR has agents that will. We have to leave it to them."

Steve ceased his pacing and grit his teeth. He knew Bucky was right, but he sounded just like the SSR: _We're looking for her, Captain Rogers. Let us do our job, and you do yours._

He'd grown used to long silences from Alice, but this felt different. And even from France he could tell that the SSR were scrambling. No one had expected Alice and Otto to go completely silent at the same time with no indication of what had happened - in most cases there was at least a hint, a witness, a rumor.

Snow squeaked under Bucky's boots as he stood and came over to grip Steve's shoulder. The sun was falling behind the mountains, turning the air dark and cold. "It's Alice," Bucky murmured. "If anyone can get through this war, it's her. You know her, she's probably cooking up some plot right now."

It was a thought that had comforted Steve often. Alice, with her shrewdness, cunning, and perception, could make it through nearly everything.

"Then where is she?" he murmured.

A long silence passed. Because Bucky couldn't answer that. No one could. And Steve was stuck here, in the snow, with all the strength and speed Doctor Erskine had given him being absolutely useless to help.

Eventually, Bucky's hand tightened on his shoulder. "C'mon. We'd best get some sleep before the mission tomorrow. No use fighting tired."

Steve hesitated for a moment, and then followed. Bucky was right. He usually was.

* * *

The mood at the start of the mission the next day was grim. They'd journeyed into the bitter heights of the Swiss alps, where the air flurried with snow. The 107th Tactical Team stood on the rocky outcrop at the top of their zipline, waiting as Gabe listened in to the hijacked radio frequency.

Steve found himself staring down the zipline, the landscape ahead of him a drab plateau of rock and ice. He was working to push all worries for Alice out of his mind, just for the mission. He owed it to his men to be completely focused.

His men stood with their hands tucked under their armpits and their jaws clenched. Normally they'd be talking and teasing at a time like this, but silence stretched between them. They all knew about the sudden silence from Berlin, after all. None of them were willing to hypothesize what the silence could mean. Dernier sat quietly sharpening his knife, and Dugan had paced to the far end of the outcrop, his face grim.

Only the wind and the faint whirs from Gabe's radio set broke the silence.

When Bucky spoke, Steve almost jumped.

"Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?"

"Yeah," Steve said distantly. "And I threw up?"

"This isn't payback, is it?"

Steve's eyes finally focused and he looked up the length of the zipline, a half-smile crossing his face. "Now why would I do that?"

Bucky laughed, and like that, the mood on the outcrop eased.

Steve thought back to that time they'd gone on the Cyclone, which had been just after Alice had left the first time. Bucky'd been trying to cheer Steve up. Bucky had always been there to remind Steve of himself, to remind him to have fun, in Alice's absences. He glanced back down to the train tracks below, which stretched on into the distance. How long would this absence be?

"We were right, Doctor Zola's on the train!" Gabe called, one ear to his radio headpiece. Steve and Bucky glanced over. "HYDRA dispatcher gave him permission to open up the throttle."

Steve's jaw clenched.

Gabe's looked up. "Wherever he's going, they must need him bad."

Steve and Bucky traded a wordless glance. Steve hadn't forgotten that they were after the man who'd tortured Bucky for days in Austria.

Bucky nodded minutely, and Steve pulled on his helmet. The outcrop rustled with activity as they finished off their last minute preparations, stashing weapons and tugging on gloves for the zipline.

Falsworth, on lookout, called: "Let's get going, because they're moving like the devil."

"We've only got about a ten second window," Steve called as he hooked up his zipline. "You miss that window… we're bugs on a windshield."

"Mind the gap," Falsworth said wryly.

"Better get moving, bugs!" Dugan called.

Steve hovered on the edge of the precipice, fingers clamped around the pulley handles, his eyes on the tracks below and his whole body buzzing with energy. _After this, Alice, I promise. I won't rest until we find out where you are._

Dernier threw his hand down. "_Maintenant!_" [_Now_!]

Steve set one foot on the edge of the cliff and _leaped._

* * *

"_Bucky! Hang on!_"

Wind screaming, rock and ice blurring past.

"_Grab my hand_!"

Bucky's eyes were so, so scared.

"_No-_"

Steve stared, and stared, until there was nothing left to see. Iron crumpled under his hands and he caved in to himself, his head dropping between his shoulders and his whole face crumpling as the wind screamed in his ears and the beat of his heart told him _gone, forever, gone._

* * *

They'd heard that the _Whip & Fiddle _got hit in the last bombing raid in London, but Steve had either forgotten or not cared enough to remember when he found himself heading that way after his briefing with the SSR. He'd had to get out. Everyone kept _looking _at him.

The pub was _right_, he felt. When he arrived at the blasted-open front of the pub, it felt welcoming. Everything here was shattered: the doors blasted off their hinges, windows smashed, tables and chairs splintered, the roof caved in. It made sense.

He trudged into the darkness and debris, not caring what he crushed under his feet. There was a radio in the corner. He turned away from it.

Steve took one of the last surviving bottles from behind the collapsed bar, found the last intact table, and started drinking. He didn't really stop to taste the liquor, but it reminded him of the bottom-shelf stuff he, Bucky, and Alice used to drink in Brooklyn, and that made him cry. Then everything made him cry.

When he heard crunching footsteps and looked over to see Peggy, her face solemn and knowing, he started talking. She listened patiently as he explained to her that Erskine had told him that he couldn't get drunk. As if it was important. She said nothing about his choked voice and the dampness of his cheeks.

"Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person," she said in a startlingly normal voice. She righted a toppled chair and sat across from him. "He thought it could be one of the side effects."

Again, for no good reason, a haunting image flashed across Steve's mind: Bucky's outstretched, grasping hand.

He looked down.

"It wasn't your fault."

Steve drew in a breath. "Did you read the report?"

"Yes."

He let out a poor imitation of a laugh. "Then you know that's not true."

"You did everything you could," she said calmly. God, that calm - he didn't know how she did it. A few moments passed. "Did you believe in your friend?"

Steve looked up, almost glaring.

"Did you respect him?" Peggy persisted. "Then stop blaming yourself." Steve couldn't stand her compassionate, relentless gaze any longer, so he glanced down. "Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought you were worth it."

A long silence passed. Steve's mind was crowded with sickening images, real and imagined, without even the blur of alcohol to soften them. He had a question. But he didn't know if he had the courage to ask it. He drew in a deep breath.

He finally looked up, his eyes red. "She's dead too, isn't she."

The look in Peggy's eyes shifted, her determined compassion giving way to a flicker of grief. She didn't break eye contact, though. She paused a moment to take a breath. "They classified her as Missing in Action today. For a spy of her level and importance…" Peggy sighed, and her dark eyes welled with tears. "We should always have hope, but there's been no sign of hide nor hair of her, not even a word that she was en route to a concentration camp or jail. Her apartment is empty, she hasn't been seen for two weeks. The Propaganda Department has canceled all her upcoming performances with no explanation. And we just got word," her face creased, "that Otto has been found dead."

Steve's face crumpled and he looked away, as if to fend off a blow.

"The German papers say it was a suicide, no way to know if that's true or not. The Nazis are keeping quiet, and it's not unusual for people in Germany to suddenly… vanish." Peggy's head bowed, and she broke eye contact with him for the first time since she'd sat down. "Either way… yes, Steve. I think she's dead."

Steve let out a sound as if he'd been punched in the gut - he should know, he'd experienced the feeling more than enough - and curled forward in his chair, hunching over the supernova of pain. After a moment, Peggy reached out to rub his shoulder.

Steve stared sightlessly at the floor. He thought of the last time he saw her: the cabin in the snow, holding her close and being so sure that one day they would have some kind of normal together.

_I can't wait until the last time we have to say goodbye_, she'd said.

Steve didn't know how it had all gone so wrong so fast. He drew in a sharp, painful breath that made his chest shudder.

He sucked in another breath. "Her… her brother." Peggy's brow pinched as Steve choked out the words. "Tom. I have to tell him the truth. He needs to know-"

"Alright," Peggy agreed, her eyes still gleaming. Steve could hardly imagine going back home with this terrible burden, finding Tom, telling him… he pressed his eyes shut.

"I'm the one who wanted to fight," he said thickly. "They were never meant to be fighters."

His vision blurred with tears. _My wife. My best friend._

"But they _were _fighters, Steve, and that's why you loved them. Give them the dignity of their choice."

Still hunched over, Steve looked up into Peggy's face. He saw the way she was holding back her heartbreak to support him in his, and it made him straighten.

Peggy leaned back in her chair, watching him sit straight. Steve felt a calm settle over him: Alice's calm, the kind that you wore into battle.

When he spoke again, his voice was even. "I'm going after Schmidt." His brow furrowed slightly, but he fought for control of his expression with the strength he'd seen Bucky fight with this past year. "I'm not gonna stop until all of HYDRA is dead or captured."

He felt Peggy's eyes on him. He wondered if she saw how flimsy his facade was, how hard he was fighting not to crumple in on himself again. Or if she saw something more, like she always had.

Finally, she spoke. "You won't be alone."

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Steve Rogers: The Last Days_' by Marley Anaheim (2 February 1985):

… _at the end of that winter, Steve Rogers had suffered greater losses than he had throughout the first four years of war. When his friend fell from that train, he lost his whole world._

_It's no wonder what happened next._

* * *

Zola had spilled his guts: the devastating amount of bombing power HYDRA had achieved, their plan to begin their campaign within 24 hours, and the location of their base in Switzerland.

Steve absorbed it all with calm, eyeing the arrayed documents and listening to Stark, Phillips, and his men. When the gravity of the situation had turned the room silent, Morita spoke:

"So what're we supposed to do? I mean, it's not like we can just knock on the front door."

"Why not?" Steve asked. Everyone in the room turned to look at him, with varying degrees of confusion, as he looked down at the map of HYDRA's mountain base. And Steve realized, with a stomach-dropping sensation, that there was no one left who would tell him his plans were over the top.

_Don't do anything stupid until I get back._

_I never do anything crazy. I leave that to you._

He looked up. "That's exactly what we're going to do."

* * *

Steve tore through HYDRA's troops with a cold, precise fury. He rammed through their lines on his bike and then took his shield in hand, striking out at every man in a HYDRA uniform his eyes landed on. But eventually it was too much even for him.

When Schmidt swaggered up to him inside the base, Steve stared him down. _Was it you? _he wondered. _Did you have her taken away and killed?_

Steve knew better than to think that Schmidt would ever tell him. The man was right back to talking about Erskine again, like a kid who hadn't been picked for a baseball team. Steve still felt calm, almost detached: he wanted more than anything to end this fight, but he'd lost all fear. It was as if there was ice in his veins.

"So," Schmidt hissed, his eyes on Steve. "What made you so special?"

Steve allowed himself to smile. "Nothing. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn."

When Schmidt hit him in the face Steve wasn't exactly surprised, but Schmidt's strength did startle him - he'd forgotten that the Red Skull was just as strong as him.

"I can do this all day," Steve gasped.

Moments later Gabe, Falsworth, and Dugan smashed through the windows, and Steve lost himself in the fight once more.

The SSR's assault on HYDRA's headquarters was one of the fiercest battles Steve had ever seen: the air was alive with flashing blue light, rattling gunfire and screams. The whole base shook with explosions. Steve fought through it all, hunting down Schmidt. Hunting down the end.

Schmidt got aboard the main plane in the massive hangar - the _Valkyrie_, Zola had called it. Steve chased the plane.

The plane outstripped him. Steve felt cold horror sink into his gut.

But then Peggy and Phillips roared up beside him in a car, and with a dizzying rush of relief Steve climbed in.

They chased Schmidt down the runway.

With the wind whistling in his ears, Steve climbed up onto the side of the car as they approached the plane, his eyes focused.

"Wait!" Peggy called over the roar of the engine. Steve glanced back, and she rose up to kiss him on the cheek. Her lips were warm on his skin, and the contact jolted him. When she pulled back, Steve looked down at her and saw the blazing look in her eyes. Unspoken words echoed between them, and Steve knew that they were both thinking of the two people who should have been here. They both knew it had all been for this. "Go get him," Peggy commanded.

Steve glanced away.

"I'm not kissing you," Phillips shouted over the noise of the approaching propellers.

Steve ducked past the propellers, feeling them slam against the shield on his back, and as the blinding light of day rushed toward him he bunched his muscles and _leaped_.

He clung to the landing gear, conscious of the runway dropping away beneath him and a sudden bitter wind screaming around him. He looked back to make sure Peggy and Phillips had made it: there, already almost a distant speck, the car hung off the edge of the cliff at the end of the runway. Steve let out a breath and looked up, to where the hull of the plane opened up as the landing gear retracted.

The darkness of the plane swallowed him whole, and Steve felt that same icy calm focus fall over him again.

_One way or another_, he thought. _This will be over soon._

* * *

Ten minutes later, Steve sat bloody and covered in soot in the pilot's seat.

He'd killed the HYDRA suicide pilots at the back of the plane, jumped on top of the bomb headed for New York, and after a heart-stopping struggle in the sky had flown it right back into the _Valkyrie._

The responsibility of all those bombs in the plane's hangar had weighed heavy on him, crushing his breath in his chest. They still did.

Schmidt had snuck up on him in the cockpit. Hadn't been expecting that - Schmidt wasn't normally so subtle. They'd smashed up the cockpit pretty good, the two of them. There was a hole in the windshield and the machinery was all screwed up, leaving nothing but the stuck autopilot and the manual controls.

When they'd hit the Tesseract and blue light had flickered everywhere, revealing a strange, beautiful world of muted lights and glimmering stars, Steve had paused. _Maybe that thing isn't just a power source. _The cube had shaken and streamed with color, making Schmidt scream.

_He said that the cube belonged to the Norse gods_. _Maybe he wasn't half so crazy as I thought he was._

Didn't matter now. Schmidt was gone, in a pillar of blinding multicolor light and a deafening clap of thunder. Tesseract was gone too.

Steve now sat, alone, the captain of an empty plane. His eyes were fixed on the horizon. It looked beautiful: it was the hour before sunset, and the light across the soft clouds had turned gold. Icy wind whistling through the cracked windshield brushed Steve's cheeks, cooling the sweat of battle.

_Ziel: New York City_, the autopilot readout had said. Steve knew _Ziel_, Alice had taught it to him: _Target._

Steve drew in a deep breath, still watching the horizon.

He reached down to turn on the radio.

"Come in," he said, still slightly breathless. "This is Captain Rogers. Do you read me?"

The reply was instant. Morita's crackly voice rang out: "_Captain Rogers, what is your-_"

"_Steve, is that you? Are you alright?_" Peggy. Her voice cracked over the radio, and Steve didn't think it was static.

"Peggy, Schmidt's dead." He had to raise his voice over the wind whistling in through the hole in the cockpit.

"_What about the plane_?"

Looking over the controls, Steve hesitated. "That's a little bit tougher to explain."

"_Give me your coordinates, I'll find you a safe landing site._" There was that determined level headedness he remembered. It almost made him smile.

"There's not going to be a safe landing," he said, and finally voiced the thought that had occurred to him as he watched that beautiful horizon. "But I can try to force it down." The breath in his lungs felt icy.

"_I - I'll get Howard on the line, he'll know what to do._"

Brilliant, inventive Howard, who could find an answer for anything.

"There's not enough time," he explained, "this thing's moving too fast and it's heading for New York."

He recalled Alice's calm determination. _It's not often that I consider throwing my life away, Steve, I promise. But for something _that _worth it-_

_Nothing's worth it_, he'd told her.

She'd proved him wrong, once again.

The radio had gone silent. Once again the cockpit was filled with nothing but the swirling arctic wind, and the sound of Steve's breathing. The horizon blurred as his eyes filled with tears.

"I've gotta put her in the water."

"_Please, don't do this," _Peggy's voice cracked again. "_We have time, we can work it out-_"

"Right now I'm in the middle of nowhere," he told her, willing her to understand. He wondered if he was asking permission. "If I wait any longer, a lot of people are gonna die." _Bucky's sisters. Tom. Everyone I've ever known back home. A whole world. _

"Peggy," he breathed. "This is my choice." _I'm sorry_, he didn't say.

He felt bad for a fleeting thought that crossed his mind: _at least there's less people to grieve for me._

Peggy did not speak.

Steve reached into his pocket and found the plain old army surplus compass which he'd had for ten years. He set it on top of the cockpit pressure readout where it sat, empty, pointing north.

_I could tell you something sweet and stupid about how I hope you always end up going in the right direction._ _But truthfully, I'm worried you'll get yourself lost the minute you leave New York._

Still looking down at the compass, Steve wrapped his hands around the steering column. _I had no idea how lost I'd get._

He tore his gaze away from the compass, fixed it on the horizon. Beams of sunlight broke free of the clouds and shone bright across the sky. Steve forced his grip _down._

The autopilot fought him, but Steve was stronger. The plane groaned as it tilted downward, shaking at the shift in air pressure.

The compass shifted on the readout, and as the plane plunged into the cloudline Steve's stomach felt as if it was trying to fight its way through his diaphragm. The readouts on the console were going wild, spinning arrows and flashing lights trying to tell him to stop. Steve's heart thundered in his chest as he looked into the misty mass of clouds before him.

"Peggy?"

"_I'm here._"

The clouds broke apart and Steve saw, for the first time, the ground below: dark, undulating ocean and an ice shelf ahead. The ice stretched on for miles and miles. No one below to get hurt. Just him.

"We were married, y'know."

"_What_?"

The memory soothed his short, scared breaths. "Alice and I. We got married on that mission south of Montluçon in April, by a pastor. We went back to our missions the next day. She's… she _was _my wife, Peggy."

"_Steve_," Peggy's voice was wrought with emotion. He could practically hear her heart cracking over the radio. "_She'd be so proud of you. She'd want you to _live."

"Y'know, I was gonna cash in that dance you promised at our wedding. Alice and I were going to have another one after the war." He could see the rugged terrain of the ice now, the details of spidery cracks and shadowed hills. "Do it properly."

"_You still can._" Peggy sounded desperate. It helped distract him from the sound of the whole plane juddering and screeching, the wind screaming around it. "_A week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club._"

"You got it_."_ The world ahead was white, white, white.

"_Eight o'clock on the dot, don't you dare be late. Understood?_"

His chest was hurting, like it had that night that Peggy had told him: _Yes, Steve. I think she's dead._ Staring at the oncoming ice, Steve tried to push away the hurt. _Maybe I'll see her soon. Her and Bucky. _

"Y'know," he said, fighting off the tremor in his voice, "I still don't know how to dance."

There was a pause. When Peggy next spoke her voice sounded softer. Or maybe the sounds of groaning machinery and screaming air were growing louder.

"_I'll show you how, just be there. We'll dance to one of Alice's favourite songs."_

Steve couldn't see the sky any more. Snow flew into the cockpit, stinging his face.

"_It's Only A Paper Moon_." He took a breath. "She liked that one. But I'd hate to step on your-"

"_Steve?_"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END
> 
> (Just kidding. Again.)


	50. PART THREE - Chapter Forty One

**Part Three: Ghosts**

_ **~ Stay, stay.  
Memory will hold you,  
Stay, stay.  
But in the darkness you can sing.  
Sing, sing.  
In the safety of the tree.  
Sing, sing.  
Your song belongs to me. ~** _

* * *

_Berliner Zeitung _[_Berlin Newspaper_] headline, 20 June 1945:

_WAS GESCHAH MIT __ALICE MOSER? _[_WHAT HAPPENED TO ALICE MOSER?_]

* * *

4 July, 1945

As Peggy emerged from the subway exit into the New York summer air, she closed her eyes. She'd only just returned from London, and she'd always found New York much warmer than her home city. She basked in the feeling for just a moment, then opened her eyes and walked on.

The streets here weren't pockmarked with bomb craters. The war had shaped the city, certainly, but only through construction and increased activity. The war hadn't really touched the city. It had certainly touched its people, though: Peggy had already spotted two wounded veterans on the train, and food and supplies were still strictly rationed.

Peggy looked around to gain her bearings, checked the piece of paper she'd brought with her, then set off south. The streets in Brooklyn were thick with workers either coming or going from a hard shift at the docks.

The war in Europe might have ended in May, but the war worldwide wasn't over yet.

Half the SSR were still cleaning up in Europe: HYDRA had left a lot of messes. The 107th Tactical Team (or the Howling Commandos, as they were starting to be called) were all still hard at work, led by Dugan. Peggy occasionally gave them things to look into on her behalf.

The SSR had considered posting the team to Japan, but HYDRA had not extended their reach quite that far yet, and Howard was already hard at work on some secret project to do with the Pacific.

As her heels clicked on the Brooklyn footpath, Peggy thought back to one of the last times she'd seen them all together: London, VE Day. They'd celebrated and danced along with the rest of the city, but their joy was tempered by grief. They drank to those they'd lost.

It had only been four months then since they'd lost Steve, Barnes, and Alice. It had been - Peggy counted - six months now.

Each loss felt different, and yet when combined they became a terrible empty void that Peggy did not know quite how to reconcile. She was fond of the 107th Tactical Team and had formed a bond with them in the last few months of fighting in Europe (they'd taken out two remaining HYDRA bases on their own), but… Steve and Alice were her friends. She'd understood them, and they had understood her.

Walking alone down the street, Peggy could not help but feel yet again that she had failed them.

She drew a deep breath and lifted her chin. That was the way, now. Already everyone was trying to go back to normal, forget the horrors of the war. _Chin up, act normal. _There was only so much room for grief.

Peggy had got herself a job as an SSR agent right here in New York, under a newly promoted captain. _Life goes on._

But Peggy couldn't leave the war behind. Not with unfinished business.

Her footsteps slowed as she approached a relatively new brick building in Flatbush. She checked her scrap of paper, checked the building number, then strode up the steps. It was a multi story apartment building, so after letting herself through the main door she found the stairwell and started climbing. One of the residents, an elderly African American woman, passed her on the way down and turned to stare at her when she didn't think Peggy was looking.

On the fourth floor, Peggy broke off from the stairwell and found apartment 4C. She drew a deep breath, straightened her coat (it still felt strange to go without a uniform) and then rapped smartly on the door.

After ten seconds of silence she let out a sigh and prepared herself for the journey back to her midtown women's lodgings. But then she heard a floorboard creak, and footsteps. A moment later the door cracked open just far enough for the inhabitant to peer out at her.

The young man's brow furrowed as he took in the sight of Peggy at his doorstep. Peggy did not let her calm expression waver, but she felt a spike of satisfaction and trepidation as she recognized the young man from the photograph she'd secured from governmental records: he looked slightly older, his dark skin a little darker probably from working in the sun, his features much warier.

"Thomas Johnson?" Peggy asked politely.

"That's me, ma'am," he said politely, though his eyes still glittered with suspicion. He did not open the door any wider.

"My name is Peggy Carter. May I come in?"

His eyes narrowed. "I don't know if letting a white lady into my house is going to do wonders for my reputation."

"Your reputation?"

Thomas eyed her sharply. But Peggy waited him out, her features still calm and enquiring, and finally he held the door open fully. "Alright, come on in."

He turned and strode back into his apartment, leaving Peggy at the open door. She followed him in, closing the door behind her, taking the opportunity to sweep her eyes around. Thomas himself wore a tailored white shirt and smart trousers, and his apartment was clean and airy. Not lavish by any means, but it didn't reflect the deprivation that Peggy had seen elsewhere in the city: there was new carpet on the floor, a well-stocked bookshelf in the corner, a radio on the mantelpiece, and signs everywhere of a well loved and lived in home.

Thomas leaned in the far doorway out of the living area, as if blocking her off from the rest of the house. He watched her closely, assessing her.

"This is all your apartment?" Peggy asked. Thomas was only seventeen, after all, and she didn't know many seventeen year olds who lived alone.

"Thought I'd be conscripted if the war went on much longer," he explained. He had a low, strong voice. A singer's voice. "Worked hard to put aside some money for my family if I…" he shook his head. "But the war's mostly over, I'm here, so I rented this place."

"I see," Peggy nodded. "Do you have family in the area, Thomas?"

"Call me Tom. Some here. Some in Harlem." He folded his arms. "How can I help you, Ms Carter?"

Peggy almost smiled at his watchful, determined attitude. But then she thought of how best to answer his question, and any desire to smile crumbled.

She drew a steadying breath. "I'm here about your sister, Tom."

He hadn't exactly been welcoming before, but now an outright scowl dropped over his face. His crossed arms tightened and his eyes flicked over her. "Going to arrest me?"

Peggy blinked. "Of course not."

Tom weighed these words for a moment, then pushed off the wall and went to the far shelf, where he began moving the ornaments on top of it about seemingly randomly. Peggy suspected he'd done it just to put his back to her for a moment. She wondered what was playing across his face.

"Most people round here don't remember I have a sister," he said eventually, his voice carefully even.

"Most?"

"Some remember. Most of those don't realize that she's… y'know." A silence passed, then Tom looked over his shoulder. "You do know, don't you? That she's…"

"The Siren," Peggy finished for him.

Tom's face twisted, and for the first time Peggy saw the deep hurt hidden there.

"Those that do know," he continued, "they get… nasty."

Peggy drew in a deep breath. Alice had never confided in her about her brother, not really. Peggy knew they were close, but Tom had always been Alice's soft underbelly that she protected with silence. Peggy did not know how to handle this.

"Tom," she began again. "Could we sit down?"

He eyed her for another long moment, then seemed to decide to humor her. He strode to his dining table and took a seat, gesturing for her to sit opposite him. She did.

Once she was settled, Peggy met Tom's eyes. "I have some news about your sister."

He stiffened, his eyes going hard. He leaned back. "She's dead, isn't she."

Peggy pressed her lips together. "Officially, she's missing in action. But yes, we believe that Alice is dead."

She watched Tom's face crumble, revealing the boy he still was. He breathed for a few long moments. Then his expression reformed into a frown. "MIA?" he asked softly. "I thought that was only for soldiers."

Peggy sighed. "Well. It's complicated. Before I start, I need you to know that what I'm about to tell you is highly classified, and you can't tell another soul. Not even your family or your best friend in the whole world, or you'll be charged with treason and sent to prison. Do you understand?"

Tom looked hopeful now, and curious. "I do. Tell me what happened to Alice."

So Peggy told him.

Fifteen minutes later Peggy found herself sitting on the other side of the table, one hand on Tom's shoulder as he cried into his hands. His body shook under her palm. He'd seemed almost a full grown man when she first arrived, confident in his skin, but now she saw the boy that Alice had known: a boy who had loved and lost his sister.

Peggy had told him everything she could: what she knew of Alice's life in Vienna at the beginning of the war, her training under the SSR, the work she'd undertaken for the past two years. Peggy told him about how she'd helped Steve and Bucky, and Tom's face rippled with pain again at the reminder of their loss. _They were like big brothers to me_, he told her.

"I knew things didn't add up," Tom choked out, and Peggy felt tears sting the corners of her eyes. "I thought she might be doing something like that, even though all the evidence seemed to point toward her doing something _awful_, but now…" he shook again, and straightened to look Peggy in the eyes. His eyes were red, and his face damp with tears. "She was really helping people?"

"Yes," Peggy said softly. "There are dozens - probably hundreds - of people alive today thanks to her."

Tom leaned back in his chair, his cheeks still wet.

Peggy let out a breath. "It might not be my place to say, but I know… I know that lying to you haunted Alice. She wanted to make it right, but she couldn't."

Tom's eyes squeezed shut. "I haven't heard from her in over two years."

Peggy did not know what to say to that.

Tom cracked an eye open. "You said Steve and Bucky… they knew."

"From what I understand, they were completely in the dark until I assigned them - unknowingly - to a mission with Alice in Italy. When they found out they were… angry," Peggy recalled the way Steve had stormed up to her after that mission, "but I believe they made amends."

"So they kept it secret from me too," Tom said with a bite of hurt in his voice. Peggy's lips pressed together, but before she could think of how to respond to that, Tom sighed. "I know why. I just…" he shook his head. "She promised me once that one day, she'd tell me every secret she had. I know it ain't her fault that she can't, and I don't blame her for wanting to help people however she could, but I just…" his eyes fixed on the roof. "I thought one day I'd have a sister again." His expression closed off, but not before Peggy saw the consuming grief in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Tom," Peggy said softly.

His eyes turned to her once more. "But you said she's _missing. _How can you say she's dead if you don't _know?_" Something like accusation filtered into his voice. "Did you even try to find her?"

"I tried," Peggy said, maybe a tad too curtly. "I am _still _trying."

His mouth snapped shut.

Peggy sighed. "The last confirmed sighting of Alice was her performance in Tiergarten on January 20th, but we can't be sure if something happened to her that night or later. There are some reports of a disturbance at that building, but nothing concrete." Tom listened to her with sharp attention. "Alice's handler's body was found days later at his apartment, and seemingly it appeared as if he had committed suicide."

Peggy cleared her throat. "I interviewed the owner of the performance venue, which is where the reports of a disturbance come from, but it seems he and his staff were busy with the function that night and can't recall noticing anything particular about the Siren other than that she didn't attend the dinner. Most of the Nazi command are dead, and the rest in prison won't say much except that whatever they did in the war, it wasn't their fault. I have interviewed a few of them who I think had some connection with Alice, but they don't appear to know anything. It's difficult, since I still need to keep most information classified."

Tom's brows came together, but Peggy wasn't finished. "I suspect that if someone in Berlin discovered Alice's work, the Nazi command would not have wanted it widely known - they'd look like fools, you see, letting a double agent traipse all over Europe and through their homes."

"They _do _look like fools now," Tom said hotly.

"I know," Peggy responded gently. "But this was January, and they were clinging to whatever pride they had left. Propaganda was at its height then. And if some kind of coverup did occur, then we're not likely to find any evidence or testimony now. The building Alice performed in burned down when the Red Army took Berlin."

Peggy leaned back in her chair. "I'm not sure what happened. It's possible there was no coverup, and Alice was never discovered by the Nazis. But either way, I don't know where she went. I'm not going to stop looking, but… no one knows where she is. Half the Nazis I spoke to were just as confused as I was. In the eyes of the public, she's just… missing."

"So how do you know she's dead?" Tom persisted.

"I don't _know_ she's dead," Peggy relented. She met his eyes. "But I knew your sister, Tom. And I know that if she was alive, if she was somewhere out there… she would find a way to let me know."

Tom's jaw stayed clenched and his eyes were hard for a few more moments, but then he seemed to wilt. "Please don't stop looking," he eventually whispered.

"I promise."

He looked up at her again. "Did she… did she know about Steve and Bucky?"

Peggy shook her head, taking another steadying breath. "No. She… disappeared, a week or so before…" her throat closed up.

Tom rubbed his forehead. "I'm glad she didn't have to live with that."

Peggy eyed him. She hadn't told anyone what Steve confessed to her in those last few seconds before his radio went silent. It felt… like the confession of a dying man. She didn't know what to do with it. She'd been in charge of handling Steve's belongings at the SSR headquarters, and had found a much-folded piece of paper written in French: a marriage certificate. She'd kept it, and put most of the rest of his belongings into storage.

As far as she could tell, none of the 107th Tactical Team even knew. She considered telling Tom - surely Alice would have wanted him to know?

But then she saw that Tom's mind was churning with his own thoughts. A frown had developed on his brow as he studied his interlaced fingers. After a moment he sniffed and looked up.

"Hang on," he said. "Everyone still thinks Alice was… y'know. And you told me this was all classified. Do you mean you're not going to explain to people what Alice was really doing? You're going to keep letting them think she's a… she's a Nazi?"

Peggy felt her heart crack. "Tom, this information cannot get out right now. Alice worked with people - spies, resistance members, soldiers, civilians, and even though the war in Europe is over, their work needs to remain secret for their own safety. If anything, the end of the war has put some of them in _more _danger. And so Alice's work must remain secret. I know it's hard, but some time in the future-"

"When?" Tom's voice cracked.

Peggy took a breath. "It's hard to say. They've been declassifying documents from the Great War since the late 1930s, so-"

"_Twenty years_? You want Alice to be hated by the people she protected for _twenty years_?"

"Tom-"

"No!" Tom launched to his feet and his chair toppled backwards. "She fought - she _died _for this country, Agent Carter, she's a hero just like all those men they're making monuments for!"

"I know," Peggy said firmly, still seated. "I am indescribably proud of Alice and what she did for us, and I will carry my grief for her until the day I die." Tom stilled and his mouth snapped shut again. "But Alice knew the value of secrets, Tom. She would agree with me on this. This needs to stay a secret. Not forever, but just for now."

Tom did not move for a long moment. He just stared at Peggy, inscrutably, his fingers flexing at his sides. Finally he drew in a breath. "Do you want a cup of tea?"

Peggy blinked. "I - yes, alright."

Tom vanished into the kitchen. Alone with her thoughts, Peggy righted the fallen chair and then paced to work out her restless energy. She'd known this would be hard, but… she hadn't really expected this. She'd been expecting to console a boy, but Tom was his own man, and he shared Alice's determined passion. Though he hadn't learned to hide his like Alice had.

Peggy pinched her nose. _I hope I've done you justice, Alice. I don't know what you would have wanted to say to him. _

Peggy found herself by the window, looking sightlessly into the street outside, thinking of the brother she'd lost to the war. _I hope you'd be proud of me, Michael. Proud like Tom is of his sister._ Her eyes closed and she felt the warm summer sun on her face.

When Tom emerged from the kitchen with two steaming cups of tea, she had more or less composed herself. He smiled awkwardly at her.

"I made it like our mom used to make for us," he said as he set her cup on the coffee table. She settled on the sofa across from him. "I don't remember much about her, but I remember she used to wrap my fingers around the mug and say _Austrinken_."

"Drink up," Peggy echoed, smiling as she took a sip. She had not often thought about Alice's mother and stepfather. She knew their names and how they'd died, but she hadn't considered what kind of parents could raise a young woman like Alice.

"Yeah," Tom murmured. "My dad, he… he used to call her Allie." A silence fell, full of thoughts.

Tom broke the silence. "You know, I, uh… there's this girl. Ruth." His cheeks darkened. "We're getting married next week."

"Oh!" Peggy exclaimed, her eyebrows flying up. "I, er… congratulations." This wasn't exactly uncommon - it seemed everyone was looking to get married and settle down now that the fighting was over. But he was so _young._

Tom looked at her wryly, as if sensing her thoughts. "Don't worry, we've got permission. We might've waited a bit longer, but… let's just say that nine months from now, things are going to look very different around here."

It took a second or two for the penny to drop. When realization hit Peggy, her eyes snapped wide (making Tom laugh under his breath) and she cast her gaze once more around at this apartment, this young man. He wasn't far off from his 18th birthday, but he was still a child. A child who'd had to become a man.

"You don't need to look so horrified," Tom laughed. "It's both of our faults. And we're crazy about each other, so that doesn't hurt. It'll be hard, but I've got the apartment ready, I've got a good job at the docks and at the tailor shop, the war's almost over, and our families said they'll help us out." He smiled a few moments longer, then sighed. "Ruth has this feeling that the baby's going to be a girl. I want to call her Alice."

Peggy's eyes darted back to him. "That… might not be the best idea, Tom."

He set his jaw. "I don't care. I'll tell people it's for my grandmother, not for my sister. But I will make sure my child knows her aunt was a hero."

"You can't-"

"I know I can't share these secrets, Peggy. Trust me, I won't tell anyone." She looked into his eyes and saw the truth there. "But at least… at least let me honor my sister in the small ways I still can."

Peggy held his gaze for a few moments longer. "You know, Alice used to tell the people she saved '_thank me by getting home safe, and living well'. _She'd want that for you too."

Tom's eyes welled with tears again.

"And if you ever need someone to talk to about all this Tom… I'm planning on staying in New York for a while. I might not be able to answer all your questions, but I will do my best. I know who your sister was at heart."

Tom nodded mutely. The shadows outside were growing long, and Peggy knew she was already running late for her evening appointment with the SSR communications chief. She stood, and paced over to lay a hand on Tom's shoulder.

"One day, when it's safe to do so," she murmured, "we'll make sure the world knows the real Alice Moser."

* * *

January 1946

Staring up at a nondescript, pale brick apartment building, Peggy tugged her coat tighter around her in the bitter air. The thick clouds overhead threatened snow.

The door of the building opened, and a thin man in a patched overcoat strode out.

"_Przepraszam_," [_Excuse me_] Peggy said softly, trying not to trip over the Polish word. The man looked up with shadowed eyes. "_Czy ta liczba to dwanaście?_" [_Is this number twelve_?] She hadn't seen any number on the building.

The man eyed her up and down, nodded, and then walked down the street. He skirted around a gaping hole in the pavement without looking at it.

Peggy drew in a breath of frozen air. Kraków was still deeply wounded by the war, the Polish city having been bombed by armies of all kinds and its people killed and imprisoned. What had once been an intellectual and academic capital had become a ruined warzone, and even though efforts for reconstruction were underway, it was going slowly.

The war had ended on Alice's birthday last year, when she should have turned twenty seven. It was well and truly over now, and _what now? _was the phrase on everyone's tongues.

Peggy was reasonably sure that she knew what _what now _looked like for her. Her work at the SSR in New York was going fine, despite constant underestimation from her colleagues. But her investigation into Alice's disappearance continued (as did Howard and the SSR's search for the _Valkyrie _and Steve), and had led her to this: a mystery.

Alice had been missing a whole year now, and Peggy had been searching for any trace of her. But it seemed that she wasn't the only one asking questions.

Last month Peggy had gotten wind of an individual in Poland asking after the Siren. Plenty of people were curious about what had happened to the vastly popular singer, but something about this line of enquiry from Poland made Peggy pay attention: this person knew too much.

At first Peggy had wondered if it was Alice: hidden, deep in secrecy, testing the waters to see if it was safe to emerge. But Peggy knew that Alice could not have gone so long without searching for Steve. Even if she'd heard that he was missing (the army had publicized his MIA status last year), Alice would have wanted to know more.

So Peggy had applied for leave, flown to Poland, and traced the rumors and strange questions to number 12, ul Polna: an apartment block designated for victims of what Yiddish-speaking Jews called the _Ḥurban_ _[Destruction]_. Peggy had seen the footage the Red Army had taken of the camps they'd liberated across Poland and Germany. She'd read reports of what had been done to the people the Nazis despised most: death camps, gas chambers, smokestacks. The knowledge had filtered into public consciousness like seeping horror - what everyone had suspected and heard of during the war had turned out to be shockingly so much worse than anything they'd expected.

Peggy knew there were preparations underway for trials later in the year. She doubted any trial could deliver enough justice for all the victims of this war.

Swallowing the unnamable spike of hurt that had lanced through her, Peggy strode up the steps to number twelve and opened the door. She found herself in a narrow lobby area. It was clean, and normal enough, but Peggy felt a chill fall over her. Voices echoed from the stairwell, and she looked up to see two women walk into the lobby, wrapped up in winter layers. Despite the clothes Peggy could see that they were bone-thin. Darkness hung under their eyes as they stared at her.

"_Przepraszam_," [_Excuse me_] Peggy murmured, "_Szukam kogoś, możesz mi pomóc?_" [_I'm looking for someone, can you help me?_]

With a few more well-placed questions, Peggy finally found the room she was looking for. She felt colder here than she had outside, and her heart felt bruised by the time she found herself standing in front of a white-painted door on the third floor.

The people here had gained some weight, had roofs over their heads and steady meals. Some had smiled at Peggy. There was a silence in this building, though, a common look in the eyes of the people she passed, an unspoken sensation of some weighty thing hanging over them all. On some, their skin seemed to stretch strangely over their bones. Most had signs of illness and injury; strange angles to their limbs, mottled skin, fresh scars. None had hair longer than a few inches.

Peggy had never been anywhere like it.

She took a few deep breaths before she knocked on the white door. For some time there was silence, but Peggy could feel someone looking at her through the peephole. She gave no indication that she knew someone was in there, simply kept her expression patient. She could not imagine what the people who lived here had been through.

Finally, the handle creaked and the door opened to reveal another angular woman. Her eyes were sharp, distrustful, and she held the door open only a foot wide. Her dark hair was an inch long and uneven, as if it had been roughly shaved up until very recently. Her skin was pale and almost yellowed in places, but she appeared to have gained some flesh on her bones. It took Peggy a few moments to figure out her age: she couldn't have been older than thirty, she guessed, though her appearance was deceiving - the signs of recent illness in her features and the weight in her eyes made her seem decades older.

Peggy made sure her voice was utterly steady before she spoke. "Are you Jilí Kreisky? Formerly Červeňák?"

The woman stared silently at Peggy.

"_Czy jesteś _Jilí Kreisky?" Peggy tried.

"I speak English," said the woman, her eyes hard. She had a German accent. "What do you want?"

Peggy eyed her for a long moment. "I'm here about Alice Moser."

For an instant the hard wall of distrust shuttered, and fear and warmth entered Ms Kreisky's eyes. Then as quickly as it had fallen, the wall came back up. "Who?"

Peggy's head cocked. "Alice Moser. _Die Sirene._ You've been asking about her."

"Says who?" The door creaked as it closed incrementally.

Peggy took a step back to ease the woman's fear, and met her eyes. "I'm not here to hurt you or arrest you, Ms Kreisky. I'm here because I knew Alice, and I'm hoping to give you some answers."

The lines around the woman's eyes creased suddenly and she took a shuddering breath. "_Knew_," she echoed.

Peggy kicked herself mentally as she watched the other woman's dark eyes gleam. "Will you let me in, Ms Kreisky?"

After another moment of hesitation Jilí nodded, and the door swung wide. Jilí wore a plain house dress, and as she angled away Peggy's eyes snagged on the black outline of numbers on the inside of her forearm.

Jilí did not take her eyes off Peggy. She ushered her into the small living area, from which Peggy could see the even smaller kitchen and the door to the bedroom.

Jili pointed at the hardwood table. "Sit," she commanded.

Peggy sat on one of the two chairs. It creaked under her weight, but held.

Jilí eyed her for a few moments, then said: "Tea?"

"Yes, please."

Jilí disappeared into her kitchen, and Peggy eyed the apartment. It was barebones, with blankets and supplies that were clearly standard issue from some relief organisation or other. There was a window overlooking a concrete courtyard. The apartment did have some signs of personalisation, though: a couple of German novels, a knitted pair of gloves by the door - perhaps a gift - and a folded letter on a stool on the other side of the room. No photos. No memories. Jilí had come here with nothing.

Peggy had just craned her neck to get a look at the corner of a record cover poking out from behind the stool on the other side of the room (she thought it looked suspiciously like a _Die Sirene _record) when Jilí emerged from the kitchen.

Jilí's fingers shook as she set down Peggy's teacup - not out of fear, Peggy suspected, but from weakness. Her fingers were bony and knobbled - Peggy suspected that at least two of them had been broken at one point.

"Thank you," Peggy murmured. "You're very kind."

Jilí sat opposite her. "People are kind around here. We look out for each other."

"I noticed," Peggy nodded. She'd seen the invisible threads of community stretching through this place. "How is it, living here?"

"It's fine. A lot has changed since the end of the war." Jilí did not drink her tea and did not take her eyes off Peggy. Peggy sipped her tea to fill the silence.

When it seemed Jilí would not say anything more, Peggy set down her teacup. "How did you know Ms Moser?"

"You first."

Peggy sighed. "I… there are some things I'm not at liberty to say unless I know how you were connected with her."

Jilí's eyes shadowed. "I knew her in Vienna. She was my best friend. We…" she hesitated, then cast her eyes heavenward and sighed, the first sign of weakness she had displayed. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter now, if she's gone." Her eyes gleamed, and she blinked frustratedly. "We were partners. We helped people, smuggled them out, got them food. Alice protected people."

Peggy nodded in understanding. "You helped create her network."

"Her network?" Jilí echoed with a raised eyebrow. She leaned forward. "Listen. I was pulled out of bed by soldiers one night five years ago and taken away from everything and everyone I'd ever known. I figured either they'd taken Alice too or they hadn't, but either way it was in my best interests to keep my mouth shut. Then, after years of _hell_, I get out and I find that she…" Jilí finally broke eye contact as her voice shook. "That Alice was one of _them_."

Jilí reached up and swiped away tears, still avoiding Peggy's eyes.

Peggy set down her tea. She sensed that this was a woman not used to betraying emotion. She could see how Jilí and Alice would have fit together - Alice seemed almost warm compared with this sharp-edged warrior.

Jilí looked back. "That wasn't Alice. It _wasn't. _So I don't know what the hell is going on, but my friend was _not _that person. And she's missing." Jilí leaned across the table, her eyes sharp again. "I think you know something."

Peggy took in this hard, lean, angry woman. She wondered what sort of a life she had ahead of her. After a few moments Peggy swallowed and folded her hands on the table. "You seem like a woman who understands the value of secrets, Ms Kreisky."

"It's _Mrs_," Jilí cut in. "My husband died."

"I'm sorry," Peggy said. She'd tried to look into Jilí before she'd arrived, but so many records had been lost. And Alice had not even told Peggy Jilí's name when she came to Brooklyn. Alice protected her friends, even when she thought they were dead.

Jilí sniffed once, then leaned back. She eyed Peggy. "But you're right. Alice understood secrets, too. She kept a whole lot of them, she did. Mostly from her uncle, may his soul rest in hell." Peggy fought off a smile. Jilí cocked her head. "She kept secrets from her brother and her sweetheart back in the states, too."

Peggy straightened. "Her sweetheart?"

Jilí's eyes went shrewd again and she pressed her lips together.

Peggy very determinedly did _not _roll her eyes. She just guessed, gently: "Steve Rogers?"

Jilí nodded cautiously.

"Do you know who he is?" Peggy asked.

Jilí frowned. "He lives in Brooklyn, no? Got the impression he wasn't all that well."

"He's Captain America."

Jilí's eyes went wide. "_What_?"

"Yes," Peggy said. She leaned back in her chair and took another sip of her tea, thinking. She had not quite expected _this _from her trip to Poland. Jilí was frowning now, trying to process the knowledge of little Steve Rogers who she'd once written a letter to being _Captain America._

Finally, Peggy leaned forward. "Jilí. If I may call you that." The other woman nodded mutely. "I'm going to tell you who your friend became, and all the brave things she did. But you must promise me in return that you will tell no one. That you'll stop asking after her in public. I'm not telling you to stop looking for her, because we won't stop either, but you cannot reveal her secrets in the process. Can you promise me that?"

Jilí's eyes flicked over Peggy's face. Her hand ran unconsciously over her arm, crossing the pink lines of scars and the dark numbers tattooed into her skin. Then she ran a hand through her short, spiky hair and let out a breath. "I promise."

* * *

Peggy spent five hours in Jilí Kreisky's apartment.

Jilí had known a young girl just waking up to all she could do to help people, but Peggy told her about the woman who'd orchestrated intelligence networks across a continent, who'd used the death of her uncle to travel to America to join the SSR, who'd organised countless resistance groups, fed information to the famous Howling Commandos and charged into battle beside them.

Everything she told Jilí seemed to overwhelm her. As Peggy began to describe the circumstances of Alice's disappearance, Jili's head bowed.

Peggy paused in her retelling. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

Jilí shook her head. "No. I am. I'm the one who pushed her into all this. It was years ago now… her uncle had locked her up to make her perform a propaganda piece for the Nazis, and I found her and made her choose: stay and sing the song, or go back to Brooklyn. I told her she could do more good if she stayed. And she stayed. I think she felt… responsible for me, for my friends. Maybe if I hadn't-"

"Jilí," Peggy said gently. "If you knew Alice as well as you say you did, then you know that isn't true. Alice would never have stood by and watched innocent people get hurt."

Jilí let out a choked sigh. "You're right. She struggled for a long time in Vienna, under her uncle. But I remember…" a small smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. "I remember when it changed for her. She flew into my room one day with a thousand ideas about how to help people and push back against the Nazis, and when I got her to stop long enough to explain, she told me _I've been waiting for something to happen, but I just realized that what I've been waiting for is me._"

Peggy smiled too. "That sounds like Alice."

They continued discussing Alice's disappearance. It turned out Jilí had been looking into it as well, asking questions from anyone who'd been to Berlin.

After some time, over a second cup of tea, Jilí hesitated. "You… you mentioned Alice's _network. _In Vienna. Are you… have you met them?"

"Yes," Peggy confirmed. "They're laying low, and they've agreed to keep the secrets I asked them to keep. It turned out not many actually knew about Alice's real identity, save for a select few. The leaders, Vano and Hugo-"

Jilí's eyes snapped wide open. "They're _alive_?"

Peggy's lips parted. "I… yes, they are."

Jilí's eyes once again gleamed with tears and her hands rose to her hair as her mouth opened and closed. "Vano… Vano is my cousin!" her lips split in a grin. "I thought he was dead! I've been trying to get the funds to get back to Vienna, but it's rough everywhere and I know I'm safe here, and I thought…" she shook her head wonderingly. "I can't believe it."

Peggy allowed herself to smile. "If you like, the SSR can assist you with travel back to Vienna."

"I… _yes_," Jilí breathed. "I don't think I could ever live there again, but I need to… I need to see my old friends." Her eyes darted. "And then," she said in a stronger voice, and her eyes met Peggy's, "I am going to find out what happened to Alice."

Peggy drew in a breath. "We have been putting every effort into finding the truth, Jilí, perhaps you should focus on your health-"

But Jilí was smiling now: a sharp, determined glint of teeth. "I appreciate that, Agent Carter," she said evenly. "But I don't think you understand: I am _going _to find out what happened to Alice. I am happy to work with you and your organisation, but it sounds like you're also busy looking for little Steve, and cleaning up HYDRA's messes. I am going to look for my friend. And I'm going to find out every rotten detail about those Nazi _Schwein _while I do."

Peggy blinked. She hadn't heard anyone call Steve _little_ in a while, and Jilí's sudden determination was almost jarring. But as she looked into Jilí's eyes, she recognized something that Peggy felt she shared.

Peggy leaned forward. "Well then, Mrs Kreisky. Let's talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda forgot to wish my boy Steve a happy birthday last week, so happy birthday! And a happy Fourth of July to all my American readers :)
> 
> I'm so excited to finally be up to Part Three of this story, and I cannot wait to show you guys what I have up my sleeve ;) Hopefully this chapter was a nice surprise!


	51. Chapter Forty Two

Excerpt from article '_Nazi Diva: The Woman Who Entertained the Third Reich_' in The Daily Herald, 10 August 1946:

_Little is known of Alice Moser's early life before she hit the stages of Austria and Germany, aside from the fact that she lived in the United States for a period of time. It seems that her time in the States turned her against Western ideals of democracy and freedom, as she became a staunch supporter of the Nazi Regime in her later life. As a songstress she wielded startling political power, as she spent night after night in the company of the topmost German policymakers during the war years._

* * *

_12 June 1946  
Vienna_

_Dear Peggy,_

_Hope you're well. I heard there was some trouble in New York the past few months - something about Howard Stark being on the run from the law? He's a friend of yours, isn't he? And I'll pretend I don't know about that mission in Russia last month._

_On to me - as you know, I've been investigating Otto Klein's death. I believe his body must have been cremated, since I cannot match any recorded burials with his body. I have attached a copy of three photographs I found in the Reich Central Security Department Archives in Berlin (It was not easy getting in there, and many records have been destroyed, but that is another story). _

_As you can see, the photographs are of the crime scene in Mr Klein's Berlin apartment. I approached a criminal investigator in Britain, and with his consultation I can confirm that Mr Klein could not have committed suicide. There are signs of a struggle on his knuckles, and my consulting investigator says that there is not enough blood in the photographs for the fatal shot to have occurred in that room. _

_This is much as we expected. To the wider German public Mr Klein is a high-flying producer who ended his own life when the war began to turn and his main performer went missing. But as we know, even if Mr Klein did fire the shot that ended his life, it would have been for far more sinister reasons. I am yet to uncover where Mr Klein was murdered._

_In other news, while in Berlin I managed to gain access to Alice's apartment. It has since been rented out to a new tenant, but they are none the wiser to my visit. Alice's belongings have been removed - I suspect either German authorities or the tenancy agency disposed of her things (it seems this is common for leases which defaulted at the end of the war). After some searching, though, I found several documents and photographs (these were not in plain view. I pulled up floorboards, checked in the ceiling, and found a few arbitrary plumbing pipes which turned out to be full of papers). I have attached everything I found, which as you will see mostly regards intelligence gathered on or around January of 1945. I'm not certain any of it will be much use now, but I figured Alice wanted it to end up with the SSR anyway. _

_I'm now in Vienna again. Thank you, again, for helping me find my way here in the first place. Hugo and Vano are helping me to find everyone who might have known Alice's true identity, as I trust you are also doing on your end. Many of them are eager to tell their stories now that the war is over, but have agreed to keep Alice's name out of it. Under your advice, they will say they don't know the name of their rescuer. I'm surprised by how many people either did not recognise Alice anyway, or were rescued by her alias 'Al'. Even a year and a half after she has gone missing, Alice has covered her tracks well._

_I sometimes wonder how many stories she's a part of, known only as a faceless, nameless hero._

_My work, as always, continues to turn up plenty of information about larger Nazi sins. Thank you for your referral to the lawyer involved in the Nuremberg trials, I have turned plenty of useful information over to him. I found two Gestapo commanders hiding in plain sight in Berlin when I last visited, and I have leads on three more in Austria. I've been turning over all my evidence from the Reich Central Security Department archives and my interviews. I've decided to keep a journal of everything I learn, to keep track. _

_It's hard to move freely now that Germany has been split up, and even more difficult to get access to the records and archives I want to, but with the SSR's resources and some stubbornness I'm getting by._

_Since arriving in Vienna I've been staying in Alice's mansion. It's fallen into disrepair somewhat, though it mostly escaped the bombing. Alice didn't leave a will, and she's not officially dead, so no one quite knows what to do with it. I've found more intelligence documents hidden in the house, which I have also attached, but she hadn't spent as much time here in the last year of the war._

_I think you should get the SSR to buy this mansion, when it eventually becomes available. Alice had no love for the place, but since I've been staying here I've also been offering board to others who've returned to Vienna after being stolen away, and it's become somewhat of a hub. We're technically squatting, I suppose, but we learned how to live quietly during the war. I would like to stop hiding. I think we should make this place a home for the displaced and the lost, a place for people to get back on their feet. Right in the heart of Vienna, where they belong._

_I know the SSR might not go for it. But I'm asking anyway. _

_I will keep you updated on my investigation. So far I've pinned down the disappearance to a two week window. Still no witnesses._

_Yours truly,  
Jil_ _í_

* * *

_1 July 1946  
New York_

_Dear Jil_ _í,_

_I hadn't expected you to progress so quickly (I can already feel you glaring at me), excellent work. I'm alright, there was a bit of a scuffle in New York but all is well now and Stark is on the right side of the law again. I'm currently staying at a residence provided by Howard, with a dear friend of mine. Thank you for the photographs and records you sent through._

_And I'm afraid I must insist you tell me how you found out about that mission. I suspect one of the Howling Commandos (what a ridiculous name) told you, which they really shouldn't have. However did you meet them in the first place? I suppose you interviewed them._

_Thank you for investigating Otto's death. He was a friend of mine, and shared a close bond with Alice. It brings me no joy to hear that our suspicions about his death have been confirmed, but I'm glad we know at least a little more. Keep following up, and let me know if you come up against any obstacles. Hopefully with my, Phillips', and Stark's resources we can get you through the door. Be careful. _

_As you know, Alice's niece was born in March - I have visited them twice since then and the young Alice is as healthy and bright as you could hope for. Tom himself is doing well, though he always has lots of questions that I'm rarely able to answer. He's been working at the Brooklyn docks, as well as at the family tailor shop (which I'm sure Alice mentioned to you). His wife Ruth runs the tailor shop now. I think Tom has been having some trouble in the neighborhood related to his sister, but he doesn't confide in me much about that side of things. _

_I met with Colonel Phillips recently. He took a leave of absence after the war, a well deserved one in my opinion. I think our losses in 1945 hit him harder than he is willing to admit. But he seemed restless when I visited. I may try to involve him in some upcoming projects._

_And now for your last request, regarding Alice's mansion. I spoke to my superiors in the SSR, and though they've come to respect me a little more, they flat out refused. Funds are tight now since we don't have a lot of military funding. _

_Luckily I also happen to know one of the wealthiest men on the planet. He said yes. _

_We may have to wait a while for the legal and financial things to settle, but if it is within our power, Stark Industries will be purchasing Alice's mansion. Quietly, of course. But I completely support your idea for the place, and I know Alice would have as well. _

_Stay safe._

_Best of luck,  
Peggy_

* * *

Letter to the Editor in the _Berliner Morgenpost _[_Berlin Morning Newspaper_], 10 February 1947, p. 3 [Translated]:

_To the Editor: _

_Regarding your recent article about the Siren, I'll tell you what I tell anyone I hear exclaiming 'I loved her music, whatever happened to her?' I should think it_'_s obvious: she must have been killed by a jealous lover. You hardly saw her in the papers during the war without one man or another on her arm. She was with SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Ohlendorf for a while, and we know the Nazis got jealous with their girlfriends. The Siren was known for stringing high-powered men along. Are we really surprised that one of them snapped? Given all that she did in the war, I'm really not shedding any tears over it. _

_I'm surprised there are still any questions about it, other than where her body is. _

_William Schneider  
Köpenick, East Berlin_

* * *

Internal memo within _Allied Kommandatura _(governing body of Berlin post WWII) records division, 15 March 1947:

_Wilhelm,_

_We had that Kreisky woman in again today, and this time she's got special dispensation from some western agency. I think we'll have to let her look at the files she's been asking for. My contact in the War Office said that she's also been allowed to interview prisoners before their executions. I'm concerned that next time she'll come back with a letter from Churchill or Stalin. _

_Reinhold._

* * *

June, 1947

"Hello?"

"Hello, this is Peggy Carter speaking-"

"Oh good, hello Peggy! Listen, it cost probably more than it's worth to set up this long distance call, and I don't have long-"

"Jilí?"

"Oh, yes, it's me. Look, I'm not sure if this is anything, but I've just come back from the law enforcement records room, and I noticed something. I've been going through Gestapo files for January 1945, and I've been looking at officer lists for weeks now. But then I moved on to February, and it looks like there was a change around of employees. This is pretty normal, so I didn't think much of it, but I thought I'd check just in case and… anyway, long story short, there are four Gestapo officers who were reported on duty in Berlin in January who were also reported dead on the Eastern front. _In January._ Peggy? Are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here, I'm just… what exactly are you saying?"

"I'm saying it's almost impossible for those four officers to have been transferred like that and been killed in the same month. Statistically and organisationally, it doesn't make sense. So I know it's a reach, but I'm wondering if it could be something to do with…"

"This isn't a secure line."

"I know, but you know what I'm saying?"

"I think I do. It's tangential, but… strange. Why would this have been covered up, though?"

"That's where I get stuck, too. If these officers died in Berlin, why lie? Maybe because they didn't want to name a perpetrator?"

"Hm."

"Anyway, I wanted to pass that on. I'm following up on it. There's rumors of another Gestapo records stash in East Berlin, but the Soviets are giving me grief at every turn. For now I'm digging into the Propaganda Department, their stuff is in West Berlin."

"Excellent work. I've been hoping to come over to help you, but things have gone absolutely bonkers here. Are you well?"

"I'm grand. You should see my hair, it's almost all grown back now. And Hugo wrote me the other day to say that the sale of the mansion went through, thank goodness. Yourself?"

"I'm well. I'm moving to Los Angeles next month, heaven help me."

"Enjoy the sun. Over here the weather is - oh, hell, Peggy, I'd better hang up. These criminals will end up charging me an arm and a leg-"

"Go, go! I'll write you soon."

"Alright, _Auf Wiedersehen_!"

* * *

Article '_No Investigation into Missing Nazi Songstress, Kommandatura Says_' in _The Guardian_, 15 October 1947, p. 10:

_The Berlin governing body Allied Kommandatura today confirmed that no investigation has been opened into the disappearance of Nazi songstress Alice Moser, whose stage name was "The Siren". The singer has been missing since early 1945, and most in power and on the streets hold the assumption that she passed away around the time of her disappearance._

_The spokesperson for the Allied Kommandatura stated that the disappearance occurred under Nazi control, making records scarce. It's unclear if the Gestapo or the Ordnungspolizei (uniformed police force) ever investigated._

_Some in the country have criticised the Allied Kommandatura for their lack of action, some stating that Moser deserves justice despite her affiliations, some concerned that any number of currently-imprisoned Nazi leaders may be responsible._

_A Berliner, who declined to be named, accused the Allied Kommandatura of a cover-up because "it's likely that the Siren was killed by a Soviet spy, you see, to demoralize the Nazis at the end of the war. Since half of Berlin is controlled by the Soviets now it's obvious why they don't want an investigation."_

_The Siren originally hailed from Vienna, but authorities in Austria declined to comment._

* * *

Letter to the Editor in _Le Monde _Newspaper, 1 January 1948 [Translated]:

_To the Editor,_

_Frankly, I'm surprised you chose to publish the recent article titled 'Attendees at the Siren's last concert before her disappearance speak up against Nazism'. I see no need for further publicising pro-Nazi artists even if they are missing, and I care less for what their paying audiences have to say. As far as I'm concerned, the only good Nazi is a dead one._

_Marlow Couture  
Paris_

* * *

October, 1948

When Peggy saw Jilí waiting for her on the park bench in the heart of Berlin, her mouth curved into a smile.

"Hello there!" she called, and Jilí's head snapped around like she expected an attack. But the look in her eyes was warm, and she rose to greet Peggy with two quick pecks to her cheeks.

Peggy and Jilí had seen each other in person occasionally over the last two years - a few times they'd met up in London, or after Peggy's occasional assignments in Europe, to discuss the investigation. Peggy could not have wished for a more determined investigator than Jilí Kreisky.

"Hello, Jilí," Peggy murmured, holding her at arm's length to look her over. Jilí's hair had grown long and thick, since she was apparently opposed to cutting it at all now, and was bound up in an elegant braid. She looked well-fed, if still a little lean, and she'd long since lost the yellow pallor in her skin. Her eyes were sharp and dark. "You're alright?"

"I'm good as new," Jilí waved her off. "And I know you're alright, I can tell just by looking at you."

Peggy smiled. She'd been worried about Jilí burning out ever since she'd met her, but she'd come to realize that Jilí could keep up her intense, breakneck pace seemingly indefinitely. She'd based herself out of Vienna, despite saying she'd never move back, and though the investigation into Alice's disappearance hadn't moved very quickly, Jilí had become somewhat a chronicler of Nazi sins.

Jilí had proved herself very good at finding people, and convincing them to give up their secrets. She'd worked with archivists, researchers, law enforcement, and politicians. She had a knack for finding Nazi commanders hoping to hide in plain sight.

Jilí jerked her head. "Shall we? I've been waiting ages."

"I do apologise," Peggy said with a smile. They set off down the main street, blending into the foot traffic. Berlin looked like most other cities these days, on the face of it: still a little pockmarked and crumbled from the war, but pulling itself back together. But in June the Soviets had cut the western sector of the city off from electricity, food, and other resources, causing uproar. The US and Britain were running relief operations regularly now, but tensions were still high.

Peggy wouldn't have known this from walking down the street, though. Men wore suits and work uniforms, women wore dresses and stockings, everyone focused on their destination.

"You got into the city alright?" Jilí asked.

"Oh, yes. I had to get special permission from the SSR to even travel here, but as a foreign agent of sorts I'm not in much danger. You?"

Jilí shrugged. "No one in the east or west likes me all that much, but I can get around."

"How is Vienna going? You said Hugo got married?"

Jilí gave a rare smile, which softened her usually stern expression. "He did. They got married at the _Steinkauz Haus_, bless them. We were all there."

Peggy smiled at the mention of Alice's old mansion. Jilí's initial vision for the place had been realized: last year they had officially opened it as a centre for victims of the Holocaust, offering accommodation for the truly desperate and resources, legal support, and advocacy for all others. It had come as a surprise to Peggy, however, when the ground floor was turned into a jazz bar run by Hugo.

Those in the area who remembered the place as belonging to the Siren and her uncle were a little surprised at the radical shift, but merely assumed it had fallen into the hands of new owners.

The name _Steinkauz_, Peggy had learned, was Alice's original codename from her work in Vienna. _Little Owl. _

The _Steinkauz _had lived on in the stories people told about the war in Vienna. Only a very select few knew who the name belonged to.

"Pass on my congratulations," Peggy said softly.

"I will. Now before we get there, you'll have to suffer more small talk. How's your man?"

Peggy's face instinctively smoothed over, to hide her blush. "Daniel," she said, eyeing Jilí. Jilí _knew _his name, she just liked to tease. "He's… it's…" she let out a breath. "Well, Jilí, I like him very much."

"Is that British for 'we're madly and love and I want to have his children'?" Jilí asked with a smirk.

Peggy mock-scowled, even though she was smiling. "You are terrible. Just as bad as Angie." Jilí laughed, and Peggy thought she'd push her luck: "Have you ever thought about…" she made a gesture. "Dipping your toes back in the water?"

Jilí eyed her, but she didn't seem angry. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm being silly, avoiding all thoughts of romance when others who lost their husbands and wives in the war are moving on, but…" she sighed. "Franz was killed almost ten years ago now. It feels like a lifetime ago, and yet like only yesterday." She shook her head. "He didn't even live to see the start of the war."

"You're not being silly," Peggy said softly. "There's no right amount of time to feel comfortable with looking for love again, and in my frank opinion, I don't think there's any such thing as 'moving on'." She eyed Jilí. She well knew by now that Jilí was the sort of person who needed to _do _something in the face of grief, or risk being sucked under. "I didn't know your husband, Jilí, but I know he must have understood you very well. I'm sure he'd want nothing but happiness for you, no matter what form that takes."

Jilí ducked her head, avoiding Peggy's gaze, but Peggy knew she was mulling over her words. "Thank you," she said eventually. She rolled her shoulders back, and drew a deep breath. "That's the records building."

Peggy looked up to see a nondescript brick building on the street corner ahead of them. "Oh. Good."

They entered, gave their names at the front desk (the secretary gave Jilí the stink eye, but said nothing), and then sat down to wait while their requested files were prepared.

Alone again, Jilí turned to Peggy. "So, I tracked down that complaint on file with the Propaganda Department."

"By the secretary?" Peggy asked. Jilí had found the complaint weeks ago, misfiled in a jumble of random paperwork snatched up by the Soviets upon occupying the Propaganda Department headquarters. The complaint was brief, accusing the Siren of misleading Propaganda Department officials as to her whereabouts while on tour, and theorizing potential financial fraud. It had been signed by an _Inge Richter._

"That's the one. It was tricky to track down Richter," Jilí said. "She was in the _SS-Gefolge _\- the women's division, and she was the main secretary for the Propaganda Department. I was hoping to interview her, but she died in the bombing before Berlin was occupied by the Red Army."

"Damn," Peggy bit out. Jilí had interviewed other Propaganda Department employees, but they'd only been able to comment on Alice's work as a performer. The complaint had hinted at something more, but now… "Another dead end."

"Yes," Jilí said grimly. "I'm still trying to track down various officials who were in Berlin in early 1945, but it's always this way: they're dead, or ran away to avoid punishment, or I find them and they're useless. I suppose I wouldn't know if they really wanted to hide something from me."

"You can be pretty persuasive," Peggy noted.

Jilí opened her mouth to reply, but then the secretary from before poked her head into the sitting room. "Your files are ready now."

"Thank you," Peggy said, then met Jilí's eye. "Hopefully this bears some fruit."

"Don't get your hopes up."

They stood and followed the secretary into a reading room, where a stack of manila-bound files sat waiting for them on a hardwood table. There were no windows, only a single hanging yellow bulb. Peggy sighed. They'd spent weeks and weeks petitioning to see these files and the Kommandatura had only agreed once Peggy had assured that she would be there in person as a representative of the SSR. These files had only just emerged out of a previously-undiscovered Gestapo records stash in a city basement.

Jilí cracked her knuckles. "Let's get started."

It took them four hours to go through all the files. They'd requested everything they could possibly look at and that the Kommandatura would let them see, which turned out to be quite a bit of work. Most of it was surprisingly dry: officer registers, bureaucratic memos about uniform conformity, resource requests and day-to-day paperwork. Peggy moved slower than Jilí since her German wasn't as fluent, and occasionally she found herself looking over at Jilí's rigid, determined face as she scanned documents and took notes on the paper she'd brought with her.

But Peggy found it, in the end.

She'd been flipping through her stack of paper, most of which was payslips and identification papers for individual officers, when two words caught her eye:

_DIE SIRENE_

She quickly tugged the small slip of paper free. It was creased as if it had been folded up to fit in a pocket. The German words were typewritten. "Jilí," she whispered urgently, and the dark-haired woman looked over.

"It's a typewritten order," Peggy murmured, her eyes flicking over it. It was a standard form, like others she'd seen. "Like that other pile of mission orders, but this must have slipped out." She cleared her throat and read: "_Detain the Siren (Alice Moser), alive, for questioning_."

"That's it?" Jilí exclaimed, grabbing for the paper. She scanned it closely. "It's not dated." She turned it over, examining each mark and fold.

Peggy had leaned forward, her hands pressed together as if praying, her brow furrowed. "They gave these order forms to Gestapo officers when they sent them on assignments. If we can only find one, it's likely the others were purposefully destroyed. They didn't want anyone to know they'd been looking for the Siren."

"Maybe they captured her," Jilí said, looking up from the paper. "They clearly wanted to, so maybe they succeeded. This isn't exactly definitive proof, but this is a clear sign that the Gestapo might have had something to do with her disappearance."

"What would they have done with her?"

Jilí ground her jaw. "I've been looking into all their prisons and secret hidey holes. There's still a lot I don't know, but… I feel like I would have found _something_. Most prisoners were released at the end of the war." She fell silent, and Peggy knew they were both thinking: _but what about all those others who died without a trace?_

"Perhaps she got away?" Jilí went on. "She could have found out they were looking for her and escaped." But then she frowned. "But why not reach out to her network? Why not emerge after the war?"

Peggy shook her head. "I've asked myself those questions hundreds of times." She took the paper again and looked over it. "Surely it's clear now that the Nazis were hiding _something_. They had this order sent out, but then no wanted posters? No national calls to find the Siren?"

"It's like we said, maybe they didn't want to admit that they had a spy so deep in their midst," Jilí frowned.

Peggy reached up and massaged her temples. "I don't understand," she eventually sighed. "It's like everyone's been looking for her - the Nazis _and _us. But we can't find her."

Jili shook her head slowly, as the excitement of their discovery faded into silence.

"People don't vanish into thin air," Jilí eventually said, with a hint of her old determination in her voice. She took the order form and slipped it into her pocket, ignoring Peggy's raised eyebrows. "We're going to find her."

* * *

January, 1949

At a bar in Brooklyn, a man in a suit drinking alone pointed at a newspaper lying open on the bartop. The corner of the page bore a single picture of a woman in a white dress, beside an article titled _Four Years Since Nazi Songstress Disappeared_.

"Y'know," said the man to the tired bartender, his speech slightly slurred. "She used to live here-"

"What's past is past," said the bartender. He flicked the newspaper closed. "Hardly anyone remembers her anyway. That was years and years ago."

* * *

Excerpt from _New York Public Radio _broadcast, February 5 1949:

"_Thousands gathered today in South Brooklyn for the unveiling of a statue commemorating Captain Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, on the fourth anniversary of his death. Mayer O'Dwyer gave a speech recognizing Captain America's sacrifice and conviction. The life-size bronze statue depicts the Captain with his iconic shield, and a plaque beneath it describes his war service and Brooklyn heritage._"

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Rotten Fruit: How Should We Approach Nazi Art?' _in _The Washington Post_, 4 April 1949:

… _one striking case of art put out by the Nazis is the music of the Siren (known as Die Sirene in Germany). The Siren came to fame before the war, with her records even making their way across the ocean to the US. But after the invasion of Poland the Siren became a Nazi icon: her undeniably beautiful, haunting voice could be heard singing Nazi propaganda songs (alongside other, more neutral works) for the length of the war, right up until her disappearance in 1945. She openly spoke in support of the Nazi regime, and performed for the troops occupying Europe. _

_And yet, her music still remains popular due to her remarkable skill as a performer. So we must ask ourselves: how can we enjoy the Siren's music, while acknowledging her Nazi roots? Do we do away with only the blatant propaganda, or must we scrap every song she ever performed? These are questions that many of us face in this post-war world._

* * *

October, 1949

When Peggy next met with Jilí, she came to her practically a new woman. She'd gone through an outfit change: her attire sharper, more professional - she was done with blending in as a secretary. She held her head higher, and the glint in her eyes was sharper. There was also the engagement ring on her finger, which was of course the first thing Jilí commented on when she walked up to her in the cafe in London.

"Congratulations!" she smiled, grabbing Peggy's hand to get a look at the diamond. "I hope you more than like that fellow by now-"

"I do, thank you," Peggy mock-glared at her, then kissed her on the cheek. They took their seats. "You're invited of course, provided you can make it over to the States next year."

Jilí's face flickered with doubt, but then she smiled. "I'll do my best." Peggy merely returned the smile. She didn't think Jilí had taken a holiday since the end of the war. And it wasn't just Alice's investigation anymore. From Peggy's count, Jilí had about seven separate projects going on, from tracking down war criminals, to running _Steinkauz Haus, _to reconnecting displaced families, to searching for other missing victims of the war; Jilí had established herself as a fierce investigator and an avid researcher. And she was still a civilian.

Jilí propped her elbows on the table. "So what did you want to see me about? What's so urgent that you had to come all the way over to London?"

But at that moment the waitress came to take their orders, so Peggy's response was delayed. She waited a few moments after the woman left, and then leaned forward. "I've been busy, Jilí. I've left the SSR-"

"What!" Jilí leaned in as well. "Why? What will you do?"

"Well, to be quite honest the SSR was outdated. I helped them set up some new facilities this year, but with the current leadership I don't see them going far." Peggy laced her fingers together. "So I'm forming a new division with Howard and Colonel Phillips."

Jilí looked skeptical. "Okay…"

"We've called it the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division," Peggy went on. Jilí made a face. "We tried to start it up back in '46, but Howard got in a bit of trouble with the law, and I had projects running. Some of the Howling Commandos have agreed to come over with us, but most of them are living the civilian life these days. You know Morita's in the running to become a mayor? Anyway, we're hoping to start up officially next year, though we've already got several projects on the ground."

Jilí opened and closed her mouth. "And you can just… start up a whole new agency like that? I don't even… what will you _do_?"

"What we've always done. Counter-terrorism, intelligence… national and global security. We're not doing this out of any bid for power or fortune - you and I know better than most the kinds of hidden dangers that are out there. This new division will be uniquely skilled to monitor and protect against those threats."

"Well," Jilí said. She sat back in her seat. "Congratulations, Peggy. I can't think of anyone better than you to run something like that. Just keep that Stark fellow in line, he seems wild."

"Oh I will," Peggy smiled. "So, what do you say?"

"What do I say to…?" Their coffees arrived, and yet again Peggy had to pause before answering Jilí's question.

Over her steaming mug, Peggy looked Jilí in the eye. "What do you say to joining us?"

Jilí's jaw dropped. "Peggy, I'm not-"

"Your only assignment would be the ones you're already on," Peggy amended. "But we would be able to give you better protection and resources as an agent. And, if you feel you have the time, there are always things that need doing in Eastern Europe, where you have an established foothold."

Jilí had forgotten about her coffee. "I'm not an agent though, I mean - I've never even officially had a _job-_"

"I've watched you solve mysteries and find unique solutions in a war-torn continent for years, Jilí. When Stark, Phillips and I sat down to discuss potential agents, you were top of my list."

Jilí's mouth snapped shut.

"Think about it," Peggy said more softly. She sipped her coffee.

She hadn't reached the bottom of the mug before Jilí looked up. "I'll do it."

Peggy fought off a smile. "You're sure?"

Jilí's jaw was set. "I'm sure." She looked down, spotted her coffee, and drained it. When she met Peggys' eyes again her expression was softer. "Thank you, Agent Carter."

Peggy smiled. "It's Director Carter now. But you're welcome." She held out her hand. "Agent Kreisky."

Jilí shook her hand with a grin. "Does this mean I get a gun?"

"I happen to know that you already have one. It's in your bag. You'll also be getting a partner."

Jilí's grin dropped. "_Peggy._"

"You could do with a helping hand, and I can personally assure-"

"_Please _tell me it isn't a man."

"It's a man."

Jilí threw her arms up. "I deal with enough men telling me where I should be and what I should be doing anyway, Peggy, why assign one to follow me around?"

Peggy fought a smile. She knew that feeling all too well. "I've hand picked him, Jilí, and you needn't worry. His name is James Garcia, and I worked with him in the SSR. He will let you take the lead. I wouldn't assign you anyone I thought would slow you down."

Jilí squinted suspiciously at her. "You're sure?"

Peggy nodded. "I'm sure." She finished her coffee, then leaned back in her chair. "I briefed him on Alice's case as well."

"Fine," said Jilí, but her tone was still suspicious. Peggy knew how she felt - Alice was still so wrapped in secrets that Peggy felt protective at the very mention of her name. It felt important to remember her, to keep searching for her, especially since her name had become mud after the end of the war. Peggy knew that Jilí especially had been questioned and ridiculed whenever it came up that she was searching for information about the missing singer. Neither of them could remember and honor their friend beyond the privacy of their own minds.

Peggy mostly tried to avoid Alice's public image; the crude comics of her as a blonde, vapid bimbo, the articles about her complicity, even the way people said her name: snarling, dismissive, the same tone they used for women like Eva Braun and Magda Goebbels. Alice was a subject of fascination and derision for the public, and Peggy had had to remove herself from it to keep her friend - or the memory of her friend - safe.

They hadn't found much more after that single Gestapo order to take the Siren in for questioning. Peggy hated living with so many unknowns.

Howard was still looking for Steve with determination to rival even Jilí's. In some ways, Steve's loss felt similar to Alice's. Everyone knew his name, and everyone had an opinion about him. But Peggy had a memory of a thoughtful, polite young man who'd whispered a last confession to her over a staticky radio before he died. She wanted to keep that young man safe, too.

Project Odyssey was still highly classified, just like Project Rebirth. Lives were still at risk - Jilí's included. _One day, _Peggy promised herself, as she'd promised Tom. Dear Tom, almost twenty one and with a three year old daughter, who carried his sister with him in silence. _One day._

Peggy drew in a long breath, realising that a heavy melancholy had settled over both her and Jilí. She cleared her throat. "Well then. Let's head to somewhere more private, so we can discuss your assignments."

Jilí nodded, and a tentative smile crossed her face. "I'd like that."

* * *

Article '_Academy of Music and the Performing Arts alumni record vandalized' _in the _Kronen Zeitung _[_Crown Newspaper_], 2 June 1950:

_The Austrian Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna today reported that their alumni record display was graffitied late last night. It appears the culprits stayed in the Academy after closing and painted in red over the names of alumni who were former Nazis. _

_Among the names graffitied over is that of Alice Moser, better known as the Siren, who graduated from the Academy in 1939 with first-class honors and went on to achieve world-wide fame as a Nazi propaganda performer. _

_The Academy, which became a Reich University during the war, has faced criticism for several years for the display and for reinstating 16 teachers who were removed in 1945 for their Nazi affiliations, but only reinstating 5 teachers dismissed in 1938 on racial grounds._

* * *

1952

The night had grown late. Peggy knew she ought to head home, since it wasn't exactly a short drive back from Camp Lehigh and Daniel would be waiting for her, but she found herself at the back of the quiet main room, arms folded across her chest, staring at the wall.

Not any old wall, though. This one had a display on it.

She, Howard, and Phillips had been very involved in the design of their Camp Lehigh base. From building it in a misplaced munitions bunker, to the secret elevator, it had all been pretty much their idea. And it had since become the main hub of operations. They'd grown a lot as an organisation since they'd finally all sat down together and decided to get started. They already had hundreds of employees, many of them agents, and they had quickly absorbed the lagging SSR and its resources and facilities.

Peggy had also had to make difficult decisions. While they had brought on some of the best minds, including Doctor Hank Pym, they had also become a part of Operation Paperclip, taking on several German scientists who'd fought in the war. Including Arnim Zola.

That had been their biggest argument so far as cofounders. She, Howard, and Phillips all yelling at each other about _that man_, whom Barnes had died to capture. The man who'd tortured and killed and developed horrific weapons.

They'd taken him on, though. Peggy's skin crawled whenever he was in the same room as her, with those droopy yet intelligent eyes magnified by glasses. She avoided him where she could. She still remembered Alice's intelligence brief on his character. _Never trust him._

Peggy shook herself, turning her thoughts instead to the parts of S.H.I.E.L.D. she was proud of: like Jilí, who hadn't set foot on American soil and who had still become one of their best agents. She was currently on an assignment in Brussels with her partner Garcia. They'd fought a lot at first (not that they confessed that to Peggy - she'd been able to tell), but she was pretty sure they were getting along now. They made a hell of a team, at any rate. Garcia had put together an exhaustive list of every Nazi officer, agent, general or soldier that Alice had ever been known to have had contact with, which made Jilí's job of hunting them all down a lot easier. And they'd been a part of some of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s most crucial missions in the rapidly-intensifying climate of Europe.

Eyeing the wall before her, Peggy let out a sigh. She wondered what Tom would think of all this - she'd kept her work with S.H.I.E.L.D. deliberately separate from him, as he had enough to worry about, though she gave him all updates about Jilí's investigation. Tom had shipped out last year to serve in the Korean war. Peggy didn't think Alice would have ever wanted to see her brother become a soldier, but she supposed that was part of growing up - you made decisions your family wouldn't necessarily approve of. Peggy kept an eye on him from afar, and checked in on his family: the young Alice, six now, and her infant brother Matthew.

"You'd be proud of him," she said into the silence. She instantly felt a little foolish - she was alone, but Howard was downstairs somewhere in the labs, and she wasn't one for talking to ghosts anyway. But something about tonight had made her pause.

On the wall before her hung a wide silver display. It read: _THE WALL OF VALOR. _

Below it were thirty seven icons, most with names beneath them. Thirty five bore the SSR eagle symbol, and the other two bore the newer S.H.I.E.L.D. symbol. On the left side of the board were the words "_In honor of the members of S.H.I.E.L.D. who gave their lives in the service of humanity_," and on the right was "_Wars may be fought with weapons, but are won or lost by men_ \- _Gen. George S Patton_." Phillips couldn't resist his Patton quotes.

Peggy knew who every symbol on this display belonged to - even the ones without names on them. Doctor Erskine was the very first one, and he had Sergeant Barnes beside him. On Barnes's right read: _Captain Steve G Rogers._ And on his right… a single, unnamed SSR symbol.

This wasn't uncommon: S.H.I.E.L.D. was a secretive agency, and there were several classified fallen agents. Peggy knew, with a heavy heart, that more would join those already on the Wall of Valor.

And yet with the whole display in front of her, Peggy's eyes kept sliding back to that unnamed place.

She glanced around her, making sure that the atrium was _really _empty, and then looked back to the symbol. "One day," she told it, "I'll put your name up there, Alice. I promise."

* * *

Excerpt from '_The Women of Nazi Germany_' by Louis Graf (1955), p. 12:

_The regime was highly paternal, centred around its male figureheads like Hitler and Himmler. The ideal Nazi woman was a housewife; dutiful, hardworking, and removed from politics. Those women who rose to prominence in the Reich were few and far between, but made a lasting mark. Magda Goebbels (wife of Joseph Goebbels) was known as the 'First Lady of the Reich', Leni Reifenstahl was one of the lead filmmakers of the German propaganda machine, and performers like the Siren (Alice Moser) also produced vast works of propaganda material. _

_No woman had political power, but in the years following the war we must ask ourselves, as a society: how do we hold these women responsible for their choices?_

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Nazi Songs Banned in many US States,' _in _The Boston Globe_, 15 June 1956:

… _The new law covers many songs exclusively written for the Nazi regime, as well as older folk songs that have come to be associated with the Nazis. Among the songs banned are many written and performed by Nazi propagandists like Alice Moser and Herms Niel. _

_In announcing the ban, the chairman announced "We do not need to be subjected to music that goes against everything heroes like Captain America fought and died for in the war. We ought to utterly reject those works and the people behind them._"

* * *

Excerpt from article '_UN Leaders respond to calls to denounce Nazi supporters'_in _The Times_, 12 January 1958:

… _increasing calls for the international body to re-examine and denounce Nazi criminals and those who supported and encouraged the regime, in response to increasing numbers of Nazis being released from prison_

… _one case used as an example by the critics is that of Alice Moser, who performed pro-Nazi songs for German soldiers, was part of Nazi high society, and who has become a figure of intrigue and derision since her disappearance in 1945. Petitioners have called for those such as Moser to face formal condemnation from the United Nations._

… _Responding to the increasing pressure, a spokesman for the UN spoke out on Friday, stating "Of course the United Nations as a body condemns Nazi sympathisers, we were formed to prevent such an international tragedy ever occuring again. But to be quite frank, with the current tensions in Europe, a dead singer should be the last of our worries."_

* * *

1959

"Peggy, dear, come in!"

Peggy smiled at the dark haired woman standing in the doorway before her, with one hand resting over a curved stomach. "Jilí," she said warmly. "You look wonderful."

"Well James tells me that all the time, but it's good to hear it from an unbiased source," Jilí said with a glint in her eye as she stepped aside to let Peggy into her home. "You look tired, but that's to be expected when you're the only sensible one running a secret intelligence agency."

Peggy smiled to herself as she followed Jilí inside. Jilí had been living in this Vienna apartment just down the road from the _Steinkauz Haus _for almost ten years now, and as Peggy strode inside and took it in she had to smile at how it seemed to be absolutely full to the brim with things and people.

As it turned out, Jilí and her fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agent James Garcia had gotten along famously after their initial teething troubles. So famously, in fact, that after a few years of hesitation they had finally tied the knot in 1955. Jilí had refused to change her last name, which James had completely understood, and to Peggy's surprise they had begun belting out children.

As she followed Jilí into the living room Peggy spotted each of their three sons, all dark-haired, mischievous youngsters running or toddling about Jilí's feet. Peggy admired Jilí's ease with them - she weaved and smiled and chided like a dance. Jilí had worked through all three pregnancies and gone right back to work soon after each birth, on her investigations and other assignments.

A moment later James bustled into the room, his wide, friendly face alight. "Director Carter!" His west-coast accent seemed a little out of place after all the German Peggy had been exposed to since arriving, and Jilí's Romani-Austrian burr. Even the children spoke in a fluid bilingual mix.

James gave her a quick salute. Army manners never really died. "Let me just get these troublemakers out of your way."

"Wonderful to see you James," Peggy returned the smile. James bustled past, scooping up boys, swooped in to kiss Jilí on the cheek, then carried his armful of children out of the living room and upstairs. Their noise gradually faded, leaving Peggy and Jilí alone.

Jilí huffed a laugh. "Thank you for signing off on the reduced hours for him, by the way." She pulled a key out of her pocket, unlocked a drawer in the corner of the room, grabbed a stack of paperwork and set it on the main table. "It's made wrangling the boys much easier."

"Of course," Peggy nodded. "Stark and Phillips were surprised that it wasn't you asking for reduced hours, but I understand it."

Jilí shot her a sharp smile, reminding Peggy suddenly of the first time they'd met. Jilí looked like a different woman now, bordering on middle age with thick, healthy dark hair, and color in her skin. She seemed tired, but there was happiness in the lines around her eyes.

"Well," Jilí said as she eased herself into a chair, "You first assigned James to me as my assistant-"

"- as your equal partner," Peggy cut in with a smile.

"So we both decided that I couldn't reduce my workload. Not with… you know, everything."

"I do know," Peggy said in a softened tone. She nodded at Jilí's stomach. "Though you may have to reduce your hours again soon."

Jilí looked down at her hand on the swell of her abdomen, and her lips pressed together. "Yes, actually… that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

Peggy folded her fingers together. It had been a long journey to Vienna - sure, she planned to oversee a few other ongoing missions while she was here in Europe, the Cold War was causing all sorts of problems, but she'd mainly come for this: Jilí's request to meet in person. There weren't many people she'd drop her many responsibilities as Director for, but Jilí was one of them. "Of course," she murmured. "What did you want to speak to me about?"

Jilí drummed her fingers on the stack of papers she'd set down. "These are my current documents for the Homer investigation," she began. Peggy flicked an eye over the five-inch high stack. "Not everything, of course, just everything that I'm working on right now. And…" Jilí sighed, and that tiredness fell back over her expression. "I've always had a stack of paper like this, right from the beginning. There's always a paper trail to follow. Always a lead, a potential witness, a hidden stash of records. But since that Gestapo order, I haven't…" Jilí swallowed. "I haven't found anything really actionable. Sure, I've found Nazi criminals and uncovered hidden crimes and found other missing people, but when it comes to Alice… everything promising turns out to be nothing. I've grown quite used to disappointment."

Peggy's brows came together, but she didn't speak. She sensed that Jilí needed to get this out.

"I've been thinking about Alice recently," Jilí went on. She set her hand on her stomach again and looked around the room. "Not the Alice who disappeared in January 1945, but the Alice I knew in life. My friend. She thought I'd died, but if she thought there was a chance I was alive she would have hunted just as hard for me as I have been for her." Jilí's lips tugged up. "Hell, even though I was dead, she fought a war for me."

Peggy smiled a small, sad smile.

"But…" Jilí let out a breath. "Alice wanted me to _live. _Even after Franz died," a flicker of grief crossed her face, "she tried to remind me of the joy I'd had for life. Even while we were hiding from Nazis and protecting people, she wanted me to have a life."

Peggy nodded, smiling softly. She'd been expecting this for ten years now. "Go with James to America, Jilí." She knew this was something the young family had been discussing for a while. Vienna was Jilí's home, but she couldn't grow here. They needed space, support, a fresh start. And Peggy knew exactly what was holding them back. "You're right, Alice would have wanted you to be happy."

Jilí stared at Peggy for a few moments, round eyed. And then, to Peggy's alarm, tears spilled down her cheeks. Jilí looked away, weeping, swiping at her cheeks and drawing in a shaking breath. "I feel like I'm giving up on her."

Peggy leaned forward, holding a hand open on the table. Jilí laid her hand on Peggy's, still avoiding eye contact. "Jilí," she said evenly. "You have searched longer and harder than anyone I've ever known. This has been over a decade of your life. You began your search after surviving a _concentration camp_." Jilí drew in another shaky breath. "You have had three children, and you're about to have a fourth. You deserve to rest. Be with your children and your husband."

Jilí squeezed her eyes shut. Peggy's heart ached. She had been trying to find a way to live with _not knowing _since 1945. It felt unfair that they didn't have an answer, and Peggy couldn't help but think that she'd failed her friend. It had taken a lot of work, and support, to begin to forgive herself. Jilí had dedicated her life to this.

Peggy rested her other hand over Jilí's. "We're not closing the investigation. We have other agents here in Europe, and I can assign this" - Peggy nodded at the stack of paper - "to them. Let's let the young ones have a go, shall we?"

Jilí's eyes opened reproachfully, and Peggy smiled.

"Do you remember I told you what Alice used to say to the people she saved?" Peggy asked.

Jilí's mouth trembled. "Get home safe, and live well."

"Exactly, Jilí," Peggy murmured. Her heart ached and she wanted to cry, too: for Jilí, for Alice, for Steve, for Barnes. For the unfairness of it all. For the way she wished Alice could be here to convince her friend: _It's alright. _"If you do that, then you're not giving up on Alice."

* * *

Article '_Das Geheimnis der Sirene_' [The Mystery of the Siren] by Hans Schruben (1965) [Translated]:

_I am sure you know the story. The Siren, world-famous opera and popular singer, darling of the Nazis. Alice Moser, a young Austrian aspiring singer who became an icon of the Third Reich. What is strange about this story we all know, however, is that it does not have an ending. At least not one that leaves the storytellers in many of us satisfied._

_When my editor asked me to write a piece on the twentieth anniversary of the Siren's disappearance I foresaw a week's project, a few interviews, a commentary about entertainment under Nazism and the dangers of war. But, much like hearing the song of a siren, once I began listening I could not help but throw myself into the depths._

_My investigation began with the Siren's disappearance. After long tours in occupied Europe, Moser returned to a life of excess and fame in Berlin in the latter days of the war, performing in local halls for the social elite. In January of 1945 she went missing not with a bang, but with a fizzle. _

_Moser was never officially reported missing, perhaps because she had no family to speak of (her pro-Nazi uncle died in 1941), and her employer (award-winning producer Otto Klein) had committed suicide around the time of her disappearance. There were no missing posters bearing her name, no city-wide search. For a woman loved by so many, when it came time, there was no one to search for her._

_This is not to say she wasn't missed. There was widespread disappointment upon hearing of her cancelled performances, and the Propaganda Department, once a well-honed, creative machine of the Reich, was never the same without her iconic voice and stage presence. Many in the public expressed questions about where she had gone. _

_But in 1945, it wasn't unusual for people to go missing; either because they had predicted the inevitable outcome of the war and fled, or for more sinister reasons._

_While I investigated the Siren's disappearance, I began to have questions of my own: not about where she had gone that January, but about her wider role in the war - about her character. As a star of the Propaganda Department she had a definitive image: the beautiful, talented, popular songstress, a jewel at parties of the elite and a symbol of Nazi ethnic pride. We know, however, that often these advertised images do not hold up to reality._

_The Siren was often interviewed and photographed, so she remains a constant __presence_ _throughout the war. But it seems she also valued her privacy. She went on several solo vacations at the expense of her production company, and did not appear to take on any man as a partner for very long. Her longest-lasting affair partner, SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Ohlendorf (who was later convicted in the Nuremberg Trials) told a reporter in 1953 that she was 'the one who got away'. _

_The best way to assess Alice Moser's character is through her actions. Notably, at the outbreak of the war, she chose to stay in Vienna. Many artists and intellectuals fled Austria once war was declared in Europe, seeking safer shores in Britain or beyond, in the States. Certainly, it's possible that the Siren may have had friends in America who could have helped her set up a new life. _

_But the Siren did not leave. Perhaps, since she did not have family who would be put in danger by the outbreak of the war, she did not feel the need to flee; her uncle Josef Huber was a titan in music industry, politics, and society, who had reason to celebrate Nazi domination rather than fear it. _

_Perhaps, in the outbreak of war, the Siren saw an opportunity._

_After a short hiatus following the death of her uncle in 1941, the Siren truly came into her own. As the war stretched on, she displayed greater and greater commitment to the Reich. She took several tours through occupied Europe and Northern Africa, performing hundreds of concerts for battle-weary Nazi soldiers. She even starred in a propaganda film, 'Love and Victory on the Front' (the film has not been screened since the war). _

_Moser did not go untouched by the war itself: she was caught in the bombings of Hamburg and Berlin, suffering minor injuries in the latter; the Nazi Captain Sauer was assassinated while attending one of her performances in Warsaw; and she was evacuated out of Algeria when the Allies invaded North Africa in Operation Torch. _

_As I trawled through archival footage and read transcripts of her interviews, I asked myself: did the Siren truly believe in the Nazi dream? She certainly said she did, so perhaps I ought to take her at her word. I found myself wondering, though, if Alice Moser simply used the rise of Nazism to achieve fame and fortune for herself._

_Whatever Moser's reason, she certainly __did_ _achieve fame and fortune - though perhaps not the lasting kind she may have wished for. The Siren lives on in memory as the Nazi diva, the corrupt and heartless starlet willing to compromise her humanity for the spotlight. _

_The Siren herself remains a mystery, but she left behind a greater mystery than her own character: __what happened to her?_ _This is a question which has occupied the thoughts of generations in Germany and beyond. A young woman disappearing at the height of the second world war, in the context of glittering Nazi social life and highly powered, dangerous men, to a soundtrack of soulful, crooning records. No wonder the story fascinated so many._

_There are hundreds of theories: a jealous lover, a Russian spy, the Nazis themselves. Some point to her producer Otto Klein, stating that he must have killed her then himself. Klein left no suicide note, so we cannot know what was in his mind. Others suppose that the Siren fled Germany and is living under an assumed name in another country: Poland, Japan, even America. Some claim that the Allies abducted Moser for questioning and that she died in their custody. _

_After months of research, and much annoyance from my editor, I am confident of one thing: I do not have the answers. The case of Alice Moser is a twisting wormhole of lost records, lying Nazis, and conflicting stories. I believe I am not the only searcher, though: records I requested have been stolen, and witnesses I spoke to told me they'd been interviewed before. I have attempted to track down these fellow searchers, to no avail._

_What researchers who look into the Siren must accept at some point, is that there are stories we do not know. Perhaps someone knows the truth and is hiding it, or perhaps all the facts are not in the same place yet. But until then, we must accept life without all the answers._

_Like the beautiful and dangerous creatures of mythology for whom she was named, the Siren will live on in legend and stories, a subject of fascination and fear._

_The Mystery of the Siren will remain just as it is: a mystery._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may recognize that parts of this last article appeared earlier in the story (specifically the end of Chapter Eleven, and the start of Chapter Thirty Three). Hope you're all safe and happy x


	52. Chapter Forty Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update to make up for the unforgivable lack of Alice!

Excerpt from article '_A Year After Project Rebirth Files Became Public, More Archived SSR Documents to be Declassified' _in the _New York Times_, July 1 1974:

… _government division administering Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR) files today released a cache of documents to the National Archives and Records Administration, which will be available for viewing by the public within a matter of days. It's unclear as yet what the documents contain._

_After the explosive release of Project Rebirth files last year, which brought many details of Steve Rogers' transformation into Captain America to light, the SSR's work during World War II has come to the forefront of historical research._

* * *

"Harry O'Leary, Washington Post."

"Alright Mr O'Leary," said the beleaguered Archives administrator, her eyes flicking over her list. "I can see you've called ahead… RG 340.5.14, I assume?"

Harry's lips curved at the identification number. "Yep, me and everyone else, I guess."

The administrator huffed a laugh. "Yes, we've gone ahead and made copies of the files, so you'll all get to read at the same time."

Harry offered a winning smile. "Wouldn't care to tell me what's in them, would you?"

The administrator arched an eyebrow. "No, I would not." Harry nodded. He'd expected as much. "Here's your researcher identification card. Go on and head through, you'll all be let in in a minute."

Harry smiled his thanks and went through into the waiting area she'd indicated. He knew right away he wouldn't get a seat; the waiting area was packed. Harry nodded to a few other reporters he recognised, and cast his eyes over the rest - historians, he assumed. They certainly looked like historians, with their professorial suits and studied air. You had to have some kind of credentials to view the declassified records today, to keep out hordes of the nosy public.

"Hey Harry," came a voice to his right, and he looked over to see a friend he once worked with at the _Post_, who'd gone over to the _Wall Street Journal _a few years ago.

"Laurie," Harry smiled as he shook his friend's hand. "You're here too? Bit of a drive up from Manhattan. You could've saved yourself the drive and read all about it in the _Post_," he winked.

"Ha," Laurie rolled his eyes. "We got caught out with the Captain America files last year, my editor's not letting anything go to chance."

"For sure. The SSR's always good for a story, they were up to some wild stuff in the war."

Laurie laughed. "They sure were. I mean, granted, we're not going to get another Rebirth-sized scoop any time soon, but I figured reading a few old records in the Archives for a couple hours is as good a reason as any to make the drive - I miss DC from time to time."

"Well it doesn't miss you," Harry teased. He leaned in a little closer. "Do you have any idea what this declassification might be?"

Laurie shrugged. "Nope. I overheard one of the archivists say something about a 'Project Odyssey', but who knows, really."

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment a door on the other side of the room opened and the low murmur of conversation died. A tired-looking archivist held the door open.

"Anyone here for the files under RG 340.5.14, they're ready."

Everyone in the waiting area stood up and filed into the next room.

Harry had been into the reading rooms here a few times, so he knew the drill. The room was long, with sandstone walls and an artistic wooden ceiling, and dark tables stretched the length of the space. Grey archival boxes were spaced out along the tables, with each researcher's identification number on the side. Harry whispered _good luck _to Laurie, then found his box and took a seat.

He opened the box and slid out the first file. _Here goes._

It took Harry approximately three minutes to parse what he was reading, and freeze in his seat. He opened the box again and flipped through the pages, skimming, his eyes wide. He realized that a low murmuring had filled the normally silent reading room.

He looked up and found Laurie looking across the room at him. They shared a wide-eyed glance.

Then a journalist a few seats down from Harry physically picked up a piece of paper, staring at it. Harry wondered if they were looking at the same Project Brief Report that he was.

The journalist's mouth slowly opened. "Wait. What?"

* * *

Excerpt from NPR broadcast July 4 1974:

"_Good afternoon America, this is your 1PM news bulletin. Historian Bill Worth reports that declassified SSR Documents released today have revealed that Austrian Nazi singer 'The Siren', was, in fact, an undercover American operative working for the Strategic Scientific Reserve. More details still to come, but if true, this will be a big shock to our understanding of World War II, and how the Siren herself has come to be remembered."_

* * *

_Washington Post _Front-Page Headline, July 5 1974:

_NAZI SINGER REVEALED TO BE AN ALLIED SPY_

* * *

Peggy made sure they did it right. They'd finally gotten clearance to declassify the files, but she knew after almost thirty years as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. that every story needed to be handled.

They couldn't release _everything_, of course, since much of it remained sensitive, and Alice's file had been so secretive to begin with that many of her actions and communications hadn't ever been written down. There were a few missions that needed to stay secret, perhaps forever.

In reviewing the documents, Peggy realised that Alice's connection with the Howling Commandos appeared tangential on paper: a few instances of her intelligence being passed on to them, the transfer of POWs in France, nothing really to prove that they had ever met face to face. She'd turned this over in her mind the past few days, but had decided to let it rest. Alice's work with the Howling Commandos had been a minor part of her war effort, and it only seemed so significant in Peggy's mind due to Alice's connection with Steve, she supposed.

It was quite a chunk of information to put out at one time anyway: Alice's initial training reports, many of her communications, reports on her missions in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and the many other countries she worked in. Intelligence packets she'd prepared on HYDRA and the Nazis alike, and most of the details of Jilí's exhaustive investigation.

Peggy needed to make sure the story was handled.

So, a day before the records were due to go public, she brought a few documents with her and sat down with a reporter she'd come to trust.

* * *

Excerpts from article '_Former SSR Agent Peggy Carter, the Siren's former handler, speaks out_' in the _New York Times_, by William Burrough, July 5 1974:

_In a sit-down meeting on Wednesday, former SSR Agent Margaret Carter opened up for the first time in thirty years about one of the closest-kept secrets of the SSR: Agent Homer. _

_The notably reclusive intelligence agent spoke to me for several hours, in a conversation which will be the subject of a five-part article series about the Project Odyssey declassification. This series will cover the Siren's training in Brooklyn, her background in Austria, the lives she saved both as an agent and before she joined the SSR, her handler Otto Klein, her character, and the circumstances of her disappearance in 1945._

…

_In addressing the length of time Agent Homer's identity remained a secret, Carter said "Alice was involved in some of the most secretive and sensitive missions of the war, and even after she'd disappeared, there were many people connected with her who could be put in danger by the truth coming out. Believe me, I have not enjoyed how Alice has been remembered these last thirty years. I'm just glad we can remember the __real_ _her now._"

...

_Carter brought with her a collection of papers from the recently declassified packet. _"_I'd like to draw your attention to this mission report, which I wrote myself after meeting with Alice in Switzerland in 1943. Here I've written '_Homer confided in me that the past month has been a struggle - both in regards to upholding her cover amongst her 'friends' in Berlin, and in dealing with the sacrifices she's been forced to make in her personal life, such as being unable to grieve her dead friends.'" _Carter cleared her throat. "It wasn't often I wrote this sort of thing down, because I wanted to respect Alice's privacy. We were friends."_

"_But I wanted to acknowledge… how much of a burden this was for Alice. We are lucky that she was strong enough to bear it - she had to espouse hate to destroy it from within. That's a difficult line to walk, but I always admired Alice's steadfastness and firm moral compass. She never lost sight of her true goal: protecting the people who needed it most."_

"_You know, they called her __Siren__. They had no idea just how right they were; she clouded their minds with the sweetness of her voice, and led them to ruin. The world is lucky she had that gift."_

* * *

Excerpt from article '_SSR Agent Known as Nazi Propagandist for Thirty Years' _in _Bild, _by Charlotte Schwarz, July 5 1974 [Translated from German]:

… _the documents show that Austrian singer 'the Siren', Alice Moser, who for years has been known as a Nazi sympathiser, was actually on an undercover posting with the SSR from 1942 to 1945, when she went missing. The declassified packet describes Moser's hundreds of missions while in Nazi territory, from gathering __information on__ the Nazi science division HYDRA to assisting in assassinations in Poland._

_For thirty years, the Siren has been an example of a 'morally corrupt Nazi sympathiser', a woman who rubbed shoulders with perpetrators of genocide in order to seek out fame and fortune. This discovery has turned the public's perception of the Siren on its head, and sent shockwaves through the historical community. A woman the world believed to be singing Nazi songs to entertain Nazis was actually spying on them for the Allies._

_Some historians and members of the public have denied the revelation, most notably historian James Edlington, who wrote a series of articles titled 'Despicable Women of Nazi Germany' featuring the Siren. _

_However, historian Kate Nicolson has responded to doubters. "I don't understand how you can deny these new facts. The SSR have dozens of files on the Siren - or rather, Agent Homer, as they called her. In fact the only reason I think these people have for doubting this new information is that the documents make them look stupid. I understand that feeling - I wrote a thesis about the Siren's moral culpability while I was in university - but what we need to understand is that this was a purposeful, curated effort to maintain Alice Moser's cover as a Nazi. The fact that it has held up so well for thirty years is, I think, I credit to her memory."_

* * *

_New York Post _Headline July 6 1974:

_THE SIREN'S BACKGROUND REVEALED  
HALF BROTHER THOMAS JOHNSON: "YES, SHE'S MY SISTER. AND I'M UNBELIEVABLY PROUD OF HER."_

* * *

July 7 1974

Peggy had been worried it would rain. That would be just her luck. But no, when she arrived at Brooklyn Bridge Park that Sunday with her husband Daniel and their youngest daughter Catherine (who'd just turned seventeen), the sun shone bright and warm over the green grass.

Peggy had also been worried about finding everyone. But the hodge-podge group milling at the far end of the park were impossible to miss. Peggy recognised Tom first: he'd come back from the Korean war a tall, self-assured young man, and now that he was in his forties he exuded a certain sense of leadership that Peggy recognised from years of picking and training new agents. He stood with his wife Ruth and their three adult children, across from Jilí and most of her family, and a woman about Peggy's age who stood slightly apart. Behind Jilí's brood, Peggy spotted three figures who made her smile: Dugan, Morita, and Gabe, relaxed in civilian clothes and with more lines on their faces than the last time she'd seen them. Falsworth and Dernier hadn't been able to make it as they were overseas, but they'd sent their love.

A shout of greeting rose up from the group, and Peggy hurried over with a smile. The introductions were a mess: mostly everyone had met already, save for the children, so there was a hubbub of talking and laughing and hugging, picnic baskets banging in to each other and exhilarated brandishing of newspapers.

The park was full of families taking advantage of the sunshine, especially since this was the 4th of July weekend, so the strange crowd nearest the river didn't stick out too much. Peggy allowed herself to turn off her _agent _instincts for a few moments to enjoy the riotous mess.

She found herself standing across from Tom as Daniel shook hands with Jilí's eldest son Danior, a copper-haired young man of twenty. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tom's daughter Alice (the oldest 'child' at twenty eight) smiling at Jilí's daughter Alice, who was not yet fifteen.

The two Alices couldn't have looked more different: Alice the elder had skin a shade darker than her father's, with beautiful thick dark hair and intelligent eyes. Alice the younger was fair, with her father's copper hair and her mother's sharp dark eyes. She seemed shy, but watchful. Both Alices seemed a little overwhelmed; they'd both only found out the truth about the Siren a few days ago, after all.

Alice Johnson and Alice Garcia shook hands knowingly.

"She took it much better than I'd expected, after all these years," came a low voice to her left, and Peggy looked over to meet Tom's eyes.

"Tom," she smiled, and they reached out simultaneously to shake hands. Peggy leaned in to kiss him on both cheeks. "You look well." It was true: He had a few sprinkles of silver in his dark hair, and lines around his eyes, but he looked whole, and happy.

"I feel like a new man," Tom laughed. He looked at the collection of people around them, and then beyond to the buildings of Brooklyn. "Back when you told me the truth, I didn't realize how hard a journey was ahead of me. But today…" he smiled. "Today makes it all worth it."

Peggy felt tears prick her eyes at the look on his face. Tom had remained relatively untouched by Alice's infamy over the years, but Peggy knew there were people who had shunned him, spat at him, for more than the color of his skin. Someone had once graffitied his house with the words _NAZI LOVER._

She couldn't imagine how helpless he had felt, having people shout in his face that his sister was evil, and being unable to refute them. It certainly seemed as if a weight had been removed from his shoulders today, though.

"I've had dozens of requests for interviews," Tom went on, catching a glimpse of the newspaper in Peggy's daughter's hand. "It's all a bit overwhelming, but Alice has been helping me out."

At the sound of her name, Tom's eldest daughter slipped over to his side, smiling. It seemed like a million years since the first time Peggy had seen her as a baby, back in Brooklyn in the raw months after the end of the war.

"Hello, Alice," Peggy said warmly.

"Mrs Carter," Alice replied. "Although, I suppose it's _Director _Carter, isn't it?" She glanced at her father. "Dad told me about… well, all of it, I think."

"I'm glad," Peggy said truthfully. "I'm sorry to have been part of the cause for the secrecy." She'd last seen this Alice a few years ago, in one of her periodic visits to Tom's home. After returning from Korea, Tom had become something of a cultural leader in Brooklyn: he'd sponsored the arts scene for a while (though he never sang much himself anymore), and become a foundational member of the Civil Rights movement. Alice herself had joined the movement at fifteen. Things had gotten a little dicey for them - Alice had been arrested a few times at protests, and Tom had been threatened by a corrupt police officer. Little did that officer know that Tom had the might of a secret federal intelligence division behind him.

"I get it," Alice said with a shake of her head. "Right now it's just nice to be outside the house - we've had the journalists camped out on our lawn for days, we only got here by sneaking out the back."

"Let us know if you need any help," Peggy urged. "S.H.I.E.L.D. has plenty of contacts in the media."

"We might take you up on that," Tom smiled.

"Well if it isn't the most powerful woman in the country," came a wry, accented voice, and Peggy looked over to see Jilí approaching with a smile on her face. She'd lost much of the suspicious sharpness she'd had when Peggy had first met her; it had faded, like the tattooed numbers on her arm. Peggy would never call Jilí _warm_, but she'd filled her life with love and it showed in her whole bearing.

"Jilí, it's been too long!" They embraced, and then Jilí began asking Tom all about his children. She and Tom had met once or twice after Jilí moved to the west coast with James. Peggy joined in the conversation while also greeting the rest of the children and the Howlies, her cheeks beginning to hurt from smiling.

Eventually, Dugan rallied the milling group of people long enough to call "Alright, alright, let's sit down!" and they all laid down their picnic blankets and brought out their food, laughing when they realized that no one had thought to bring any cutlery. Peggy sat with her shoulder pressed to Daniel's and her daughter laughing riotously with one of Jilí's sons. They chatted about the weather and how the media had gone mad, and eventually their talk turned to Alice.

"I wonder what she'd think of all this," said Alice the elder, gesturing at the stack of papers they had all collected on the blankets. Headlines glared up at them, along with old photographs of Alice in her 'Siren' attire. "I mean… I never really knew much about her, since we…" Alice looked at her father, and laid her hand on his. "Since we never talked about it. But these last few days I've learned so much about her. My aunt." She smiled. "She sounds like an incredible woman."

"She was," said about five different people at the same time, and they all laughed.

"I think she'd be overwhelmed by the attention," Peggy ventured. "She was used to fame in the war, of course, but this?" She held up a newspaper which proclaimed: _UNSUNG HERO_. Morita, in a sharp suit with a US flag pin, rubbed his jaw. "She wouldn't know what to do with it all." Daniel took her hand.

"She'd be annoyed that everyone knew her secrets," Jilí suggested.

Dugan laughed. "But they don't! That declassification had the big stuff, sure, but I don't think I'll know every secret Al had. Hell, no one's even put it together that she even ever met the Howling Commandos." Peggy smiled behind her hand. Alice had never even _heard _the name 'Howling Commandos'.

There was a small silence after that. Tom's wife Ruth offered Peggy some tea from their thermos, and she accepted with a smile.

Eventually, Jilí cleared her throat. "I… I just wanted to say, because I think this is what we're here for… Alice Moser was my friend." The air seemed to still as everyone turned their complete attention on Jilí. "She was the person I leaned on in one of the worst parts of my life. She helped me to save dozens of my friends and family, and when I was gone, she went on to save hundreds more. I couldn't be prouder of her and I" - her voice cracked as she looked over to Tom - "one of the greatest regrets of my life is that I couldn't find her."

Tom unconsciously shook his head, his eyes gleaming. The sun still shone down but the air had turned sombre around them.

Jilí went on. "I'm glad that Alice can finally be known for who she _was_, rather than who she pretended to be." She fixed her eyes on Tom. "I want you to know… in Vienna, Alice missed you _so _much." Peggy watched a tear spill down Tom's cheek. "She talked about you all the time. She wanted to be there to see you turn into a man. She'd be so proud of you." She looked over his wife, his daughter, his two sons. "All of you."

"Thank you," Tom rasped, and the picnic blanket creased up as he leaned over to wrap an arm around Jilí. Peggy watched them embrace: these two from completely different worlds, brought together because they loved Alice.

Tom pulled away, settling beside his wife again, and cleared his throat. Everyone's attention shifted to him. "I've spent the last few days talking non stop about my sister, mostly to my family." He looked at them all, and they smiled back at him. "And to a few reporters. I… in looking back, I'm realizing how little I remember about Alice. I was very young when she left - when she was forced to leave - the first time around. But… I remember her strength." He lifted his chin. "We lived in a mixed-race household in the 1930s. I was a child, and I have very clear memories of how difficult things got." His eyes darkened. "Alice and my father once got beat by a pack of racist drunks in the street. She was defending him. She was fifteen."

Peggy felt a low burn in her chest. _I never knew that. _But then, it wasn't exactly the sort of story Alice would have been likely to share.

Tom's darkened eyes lifted. "I think that's how Alice ended up…" he paused, mulling over his words, "how she ended up so impenetrable. You could come at her with anything, and it'd all roll off her. I take things so easily to heart, so I really admired that about her." He shook his head. "And when she came back when I was a teenager, those were some of the best weeks of my childhood. She'd take me out and treat me to milkshakes" - everyone smiled - "and we sang together, and learned everything we could about each other. Though apparently she was also learning how to be a spy at the same time," he cast a wry glance at Peggy, and she just shrugged.

Tom drew in a deep breath. "Mostly, Steve and Bucky were around with us too. I hardly have a memory of Alice without them in it. They were inseparable as kids. And… boy, those two really brought me into their families. I'm still in touch with the Barneses." At that he smiled over at Rebecca, Bucky's youngest sister, whom Peggy had invited a few days ago. Rebecca hadn't left New York since the war, and though Peggy hadn't been in touch with her as often, it felt right to have her here.

Rebecca beamed at Tom.

Tom looked upward, as if searching for the words. "I… never knew the Siren. I never knew about all she was up to until after she was gone. For a few years I thought I'd lost her in the worst way possible, but when I learned that it was all to keep me safe…" he shook his head, overwhelmed. "So I can't speak for her war years except to say that… I will never be able to fully describe just how proud of her I am." His eyes gleamed again, and his voice went rough. "I try to live up to her every day. I see her in my kids," he smiled at them. "And I know that she would just adore them." He cleared his throat and wiped his damp cheeks. "Anyway, that's what I have to say about that."

There was a soft round of laughter. Ruth offered Tom a tissue, and then opened her mouth to speak.

For the better part of an hour they each spoke a little about the Alice they had known. Dugan, Morita, and Gabe reminisced about the missions she'd joined them on, and about the Christmas of 1944 when she'd cooked them turkey and laughed with them late into the night. They spoke about how much they admired her.

Even the children had a turn. Most to say something like "I didn't know about all this until a few days ago, but I'm proud to be related to her", or "she sounds like someone I would have loved to get to know". Rebecca Barnes shared what she remembered of Alice, Steve, and Bucky running around the streets of Brooklyn as children. Daniel, who'd never met Alice, talked about the legacy she'd left amongst her friends.

Peggy found her heart swelling. Steve and Barnes had had hundreds of memorials since they passed, but Alice had never had anything like this. Peggy suspected that Alice would start to get her own public memorials from now on but this… this felt thirty years overdue.

When it came to her turn, Peggy let out a heavy sigh. Her daughter's hand settled on her shoulder. "The first time I met Alice," she began, "she'd sought me out. I didn't trust her at all - she was an Austrian citizen who'd traveled illegally to the States and had somehow organized a meeting with the SSR - but she eventually convinced me." Her lips quirked. "She told me that she was there because her mother had taught her that if she saw a man being kicked and she did nothing, she may as well throw another boot into his side."

Peggy saw Tom lift a hand to his mouth.

"She said that she didn't think Germany was full of villains, or America full of heroes, but that she couldn't stand by any longer." Peggy took a moment to let that sink in. She felt the weight of everyone's eyes on her. "It took me a good long while after that to trust her; it was some point after she helped me beat up a gang of awful men in an alleyway" - her attentive audience laughed - "but she became my friend. Like you said, Tom," she looked his way, "Alice was impenetrable. She wore a dozen different faces, with a layer of platinum under it all. But I think everyone here who knew her also knew how it felt when she let you beneath that layer. When she shared her real self: the Alice who was kind to a fault, the Alice who…" her voice caught. "The Alice who gave her whole life in order to protect those who couldn't protect themselves."

The sunshine was warm on Peggy's face but for a moment she felt cold, and tired. "I miss her. I think of her when I face a difficult decision, or when I face moral quandaries. Because Alice might have been mired deep in a situation of moral ambiguity, but she always knew what was right."

They talked some more after that, about Alice and the uproar the declassification had caused, nibbling on their food and squinting out over the river. After some time they broke off in groups. Peggy waited until all the children were off in their own groups, walking by the riverside, and the 'adults' were alone on the picnic blankets, before gathering her courage.

"Tom," she began, in a low tone. "There's something… I've been keeping something back, and I'm not sure I should have."

Tom paused while eating a sandwich, looking wary.

Peggy drew in a breath. "What did you know about your sister's relationship with Steve?"

Dugan, Morita, and Gabe looked up. Jilí pressed a handkerchief to her mouth, looking curious, and Rebecca propped her chin on her hand.

Tom cleared his throat. "They… I knew they were close. More than friends. When she was back in Brooklyn they were pretty much exclusive. And these lot" - he gestured at the Howlies - "told me _much _more than I wanted to know about what they got up to on missions in Europe."

Gabe laughed under his breath, and Dugan nodded. "They were definitely more than friends. Couldn't keep their hands off-"

Morita elbowed him and he cut off with a grin. Tom laughed.

Jilí cocked her head. "Alice never said that she and Steve were more than friends, but I could tell she loved him."

But Peggy was stuck on what Dugan had said. "I'm sorry, they were doing _what _on missions?"

Gabe chuckled. "You remember that mission together in Italy, when we first met Alice? Well when we all said goodbye, Cap ran right up and laid one on her. Right in front of all of us, in the middle of an airfield." They were all chuckling at the memory now.

"And they thought they were being so sneaky, all those times they snuck off together on missions," Morita shook his head.

Tom smiled. "I'm glad they had each other."

"Not that any of _that _made its way into the papers," Dugan winked.

Peggy cleared her throat. "Well, er… speaking of _sneaky_…" she had their attention now, and she glanced down for a moment. She thought of Steve's scratchy voice over the radio. She wondered, as she often had: _Would you want them to know? _She thought that he and Alice probably would. All she was left with was their memory for judgement. She looked up and met Tom's eyes. "Tom, I think you should know. Before they died, Alice and Steve… well, they got married."

Tom's mouth dropped. Dugan let out the foulest string of swear words Peggy had heard since the war, and Jilí's eyes went round. Rebecca let out a delighted gasp. After the relative quiet of their conversation the sudden burst of noise from all of them had others in the park looking over in alarm.

Peggy felt a little sheepish. Even Daniel was staring at her, though he _knew _she had secrets she might never tell him.

There were a lot of loud questions and exclamations flying Peggy's way, but she waited for Tom to compose himself.

"Um, when?" he asked in a croaky voice.

"Steve only told me about this when… when he was on the Valkyrie." She swallowed. "He said it was on a mission south of Montluçon, which is when I believe they liberated the town of Soives from HYDRA. The mission notes say that he and 'a _résistant_', who must have been Alice, traveled to the next village over to rescue a Jewish family in hiding. I did some research and it seems there is a small church with a pastor there. I suppose they… took advantage." She reached into her handbag and gently pulled out the piece of paper she'd been keeping secret all these years: their marriage certificate. "This was amongst Steve's things."

Everyone went still at the sight of it. Peggy handed the paper over to Tom. "It's in French," she said as he unfolded it, "but you can see - they've signed their names."

Tom stared down at the certificate for a long, silent moment. The paper had gone yellow with age, the edges frayed, and Alice and Steve's signatures had faded from the stark clarity they'd had when Peggy first found the document. But their names were still clear.

Dugan, Morita, and Gabe glanced at each other. "I remember the mission," Dugan said, "I remember them heading off for a few hours…" he scratched his head. "We had to start a distraction with the _Maquis _to clear the roads for their journey back."

Gabe suddenly laughed. "No, I remember now! Remember Sarge was spitting mad on the flight back? I thought it must've been because he didn't like them going off without backup like that, but they must've told him!"

Morita shook his head slowly. "Why d'you think they never told us?"

Peggy sighed. "Steve told me they wanted to have another wedding after the war. I suppose they would have told you then."

Tom handed the certificate over to Jilí and leaned back, his face written with awe and sadness. "_Married_."

Jilí smiled down at the paper. "And she gave me _such _a talking to when I announced I was getting married with almost no notice, the hypocrite." She looked to Peggy. "And you've kept this all to yourself all these years?" Her tone wasn't accusatory, just a little sombre. She handed the certificate to Dugan.

Peggy sighed again. "Steve told me moments before he… before he died. I didn't know… if it was something he wanted spread about. I couldn't be sure. In the end, I think I convinced myself that it wasn't a huge change. They shared _such _a bond, after all. I didn't understand it until I saw them together. They…"

"They fit," Tom said, with a quirked mouth. "They'd been like that since they were kids. Inseparable. I was kind of jealous, I think. One jumped, and the other was there to catch them." His face darkened. "Not that last time, I suppose."

"Steve did everything he could to protect Alice," Peggy said, because she was still loyal to him and she didn't like the idea of his name being tarnished.

Tom waved a hand. "I know. But I wish… I wish they'd been together, in the end. I think they would've liked that."

"Me too. Maybe…" Peggy swallowed. She'd never been particularly religious or particularly sentimental, but she'd lost so many friends. "Maybe they're together now."

Tom huffed a laugh. "I sure hope so. Sending each other coded messages and beating up bullies in heaven."

Ruth laughed. "Bullies in heaven?"

He shrugged. "You never know."

"So," Peggy said, eyeing the group around her. "My question to you all now is… Alice's _real _self is out there now. Ought we to…" she hesitated. Saying it all out loud after decades of lonesome pondering felt strange. "I don't know, _publicise _their relationship?"

They all looked to Tom. He still seemed to be processing. He scratched his jaw and looked to his wife. Ruth shrugged. Tom turned back to the Howlies and Peggy. "I… I don't know. I think you all knew them best in those last years. What do you think?"

After a few moments of silence, Dugan was first to speak. "My two cents? It ain't our place to tell their secrets. If they'd made it, I know they would've wanted to live together in the open, but mostly I think they just wanted rest. We shouldn't bring what they had out for the world to tear apart in their absence."

A silence followed. Peggy breathed slow and deep. She was glad she hadn't been completely off-base in keeping to secrecy these last thirty years.

Tom cleared his throat. "I think you're right. And if I'm being honest… I want Alice to be remembered as _Alice_, for once. Not just…" he looked embarrassed. "Not just Captain America's wife. Does that… make sense?"

"I completely understand," said Peggy, and Jilí nodded firmly.

Daniel, with one hand resting over Peggy's, looked over his shoulder. "The kids are on their way back."

Peggy followed his gaze and saw the lot of them: teenagers and adults from three sets of families, their shoes dangling from their hands and the cuffs of their trousers damp, laughing at a shared joke. Peggy smiled.

"Well then," said Jilí.

"Thank you for telling me, Peggy," Tom said earnestly.

Peggy turned back to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner." The faded marriage certificate had made its way back to her, so she handed it to Tom. "I think this ought to stay with you."

He took it with a sad smile, looking down at Alice's elegant signature. "I'll take good care of it."

"And now we've gotta get through the next few months," said Morita wryly. "After the Rebirth files went public I was fielding interview requests every damn day. Look forward to that."

Tom's lips curved up into a smile. "After not being able to say anything about Alice for thirty years," he said, "I find I don't mind the idea of that at all."

* * *

That afternoon, Peggy farewelled Daniel and Catherine and drove back to Camp Lehigh. She didn't strictly have to be back that day - but there was something she wanted to oversee.

After the usual rigmarole of getting into the secret S.H.I.E.L.D. facility via the secret elevator, Peggy found herself in the foyer area with the large S.H.I.E.L.D. eagle to greet her on the far wall. The foyer was relatively quiet - S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't really keep standard business hours, but it did tend to die down a little on Sunday afternoons.

Peggy strode through into the main office space, and spotted someone hard at work up the back: a man in navy overalls halfway up a stepladder, looking down at a work bag by his side. Peggy approached, making sure her heels clicked on the floor so she didn't scare the man to death by sneaking up on him.

"How is it coming?" she asked.

"Just finished, Director Carter," the man said, gesturing up at the wall.

Peggy looked up and her heart stilled in her chest. The Wall of Valor had gone through many changes since S.H.I.E.L.D. had been founded, each added name tugging at her heart, but this felt more bittersweet than tragic. There, to the right of Steve's name, a long-unlabeled SSR symbol now read '_Agent A. Moser_.'

The order to add the name had also gone out to all the other Walls of Valor in all the other S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities. They were currently planning a new headquarters in DC, where another wall would feature prominently. Peggy also planned to put up a photo of Alice somewhere before they moved headquarters.

The engraver packed up his tools and left, murmuring a goodbye.

Peggy looked across at the neatly engraved name and for the first time today, a tear spilled down her cheek. She was a middle aged woman now, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., tougher than she'd been even as a young woman, and yet she allowed herself this vulnerable moment.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been standing before the wall when a clatter to her right made her blink and turn.

"Howard," she said, her voice raspy. Howard had clearly just come up from the labs: his shirt was untucked and his tie and hair askew, as it usually was after he spent too long on his projects, and there was a scorch mark on his shoulder. He and Pym must have been playing around again. She spotted what he carried in his hands, and she almost rolled her eyes. "Champagne? Really?"

He smiled as he came to stand beside her in front of the Wall of Valor. His eyes flicked over Steve's name, then Alice's. "C'mon, Peg, these are the few hours of the day when I don't have a four year old getting under my feet. And _this _deserves a celebration." He nodded at the name on the wall.

Peggy sighed, thinking of all the children Steve and Alice never got to meet.

As she wallowed, Howard skilfully popped the cork and poured two glasses, before handing her one. She half expected him to say something dry and witty, but to her surprise he lifted his glass with a grave look on his face.

"To Alice," he said solemnly.

Peggy raised her glass as well. "To Alice," she echoed.

Together, they drank the bubbly champagne in silence, their eyes on the names of their friends who had vanished. And again, Peggy felt a sense of rightness settle in her gut: finally, after all these years, Alice had her memorial.

* * *

Excerpt from CBS television newcast 30 July 1974:

"_Yes, for years the Siren has been an example of the 'head in the sand Nazi sympathiser'_, _a floozy who used the war to get famous and get in favour with powerful men. There have been satirical comics drawn about her, for decades she has been the butt of jokes and ridicule. A short-lived memorial built for her in Berlin was torn out of the ground and destroyed ten years ago. But as we learned just a few short weeks ago, everything we thought we knew was not the truth at all."_

* * *

Excerpt from article '_New York Adopts Another War Hero' _by Graham Ingram, 22 August 1974:

… _declassified documents highlighted Moser's connection to Brooklyn, as she lived there for some years as a child (her half brother Thomas Johnson remains a local), and also trained with the SSR there. Most of her old connections to the area are deceased or have moved on, but that hasn't stopped Brooklyn (and New York as a whole) from claiming the famous Siren as a part of their cultural heritage. New York was also home to several other war heroes including Medal of Honor winner George Peterson, and of course Captain America. _

_The city's proud war heritage has combined with its love of the arts, and the Siren's music has seen a recent upsurge in popularity._

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Second Wave Feminists Adopt "The Siren" as an Icon' _by Laura Swyndon, 4 November 1974:

_After her sudden, enormous switch from complicit criminal to war hero, Alice Moser ("The Siren") has become somewhat of an icon amongst feminists across the world, but more specifically in the US and in Europe. _

_Feminist thinker Kate Carroway wrote last Wednesday: "The Siren's real character was misunderstood for years because of secrecy reasons, but we also need to understand that this is a story about what women are capable of, and what they deserve. Thirty years after her disappearance the Siren has shown us all that she could fool the most dangerous men in the world for years, and protect hundreds of people, all with her own skills and smarts. And she deserves our respect and celebration. Just as women around the world today are capable of so much more than the pre-written traditional roles, and are deserving of respect and celebration"._

* * *

Excerpt from NBC primetime interview, 1 February 1975:

"_I have with me here the half-brother of the Siren, Mr Thomas Johnson of Brooklyn. Mr Johnson, what was it like spending your childhood with the Siren?"_

"_Well David, she wasn't known as the Siren back then. Just Alice, or as my father called her, Allie. And she was… you know, a big sister. We loved each other, we had the occasional scrap or two, but at the end of the day she'd do anything she could to protect me. But don't get me wrong, even when she was a kid, Alice was one of the bravest people I've ever known."_

"_That's a big statement, coming from a veteran."_

"_Yes sir. I fought for three years in Korea, and my fellow soldiers were brave and bold men. But I'm not afraid to say that my sister Alice was braver than us all. She wasn't just fighting a war - she was living it. Having dinner with the enemy, smiling at them, singing for 'em, hoping they wouldn't notice that she was listening in on their secrets and working with their enemies. Some people call double agents cowards, or snakes, but Alice was none of that. She knew right from wrong, and she fought for what was right."_

…

"_So did you believe her to be a Nazi all these years, like the rest of us?"_

"_I thought she was a Nazi during the war. But I was informed of the truth after VE day, thankfully, though I had to keep it to myself even in my family until the documents were declassified."_

"_My goodness. That must have been a heavy burden to bear."_

"_Sure, it was. But the biggest one is still… still not knowing what happened to her. I still hold out hope, but logic tells me she must be long dead by now. I just wish I knew… anyway. It has been a relief to be able to finally share in the truth with everyone, especially my family. My children have done a lot to honor their aunt, keep her story alive, and they keep fighting for those same ideals that Alice fought for."_

"_What ideals are those?"_

"_Well we might've beat the Nazis, David. But people in this world - and this country - still live in fear of violence and prejudice just because of their ethnicity, or religion. That's what my children and I are trying to overcome. And I know Alice would've been with us 100% of the way."_

* * *

Excerpt from article '_The Siren Recognized in Vienna_' in _Kronen Zeitung_, 11 November 1975 [Translated]:

… _on Wednesday a ceremony was held to unveil a statue of the Siren (Alice Moser) outside the Steinkauz Haus in central Vienna. Speakers included her allies and friends from during the war, and President Kirchschläger. Moser's name has also been added to the Wall of the Fallen at the War Memorial, as it has been added to similar displays around the world..._

* * *

S.H.I.E.L.D. internal memo, JK to MC, 1975:

_Peggy,_

_I've attached an article about the 'new wave of citizen detectives'. Apparently Alice's disappearance has attracted a whole bunch of young conspiracy theorists and nosy parkers who've taken the notes on my investigation and have started digging into every nook and cranny. I know a few people in Berlin are getting sick of all the questions, but I'm all for it. If all of that lot can't find anything, then no one can._

_Jil_ _í_

_PS: take a vacation._

* * *

Excerpts from Pulitzer Prize for Journalism winning article '_The Quiet Austrians_' by Mary Venner, _New York Times_, 1976:

… _as a wealthy, native-born Austrian, Moser had little to fear from the Anschluss (the forced incorporation of Austria into the Third Reich). But as the world now knows, Alice Moser went on to become one of the most notorious spies of the entire war, an agent of the SSR._

_But before the SSR, there was Austria. The SSR did not turn Moser into a spy - they merely refined what Moser had been all along._

…

_Moser and her Romani friend _ _Jil__í Kreisky, somewhat unwittingly, began to form a network. Resistance in Austria was never as overt as it became in occupied France or Poland, as Austria was more culturally similar to Germany, but that is not to say that there was no resistance. _

"_From 1938 until I was arrested in 1941," says Kreisky in her home in San Francisco, "Alice and I built connections and friendships not just in Vienna, but throughout Austria. Our connections even stretched abroad, through friends of friends, and when Alice went on tour. One of those connections would end up putting her in touch with the SSR."_

…

_Since the declassification, many war survivors have realized that Alice Moser was responsible for getting them to safety. Some have known her identity for years, but have been sworn to secrecy in the interests of protecting other agents and resistance members. Moser went on to work in at least nine different European countries but she began her work in Austria, and her identity was most known in Vienna, where Moser hid and fed her friends and neighbors, and got them out of Austria and to safety. Kreisky estimates that in Vienna alone, Moser saved at least two dozen lives._

"_We just started off getting people food," Kreisky says. "But it turned into so much more. We hid people in houses and basements and sheds, Alice passed on everything she learned from her uncle's friends so we had some advance notice about raids and crackdowns, we formed political alliances, helped disseminate anti-Nazi reading material, and figured out routes out of the country so we could begin getting people out. Alice once drove a whole family to the border in her uncle's car._

"_It was tough. We lost friends. She lost me, or thought she did. She never knew I was still alive in a concentration camp." Kreisky shows me the tattoos on her forearm._

"_She really saved the skin of those boys in the Swingjugend, too. All those hot headed young boys who'd wriggled their way out of the Hitler Youth, she had a way with them. She encouraged their resistance but redirected it, so they weren't throwing themselves into the lion's jaws. She showed them how to tear the Nazis apart from the inside."_

_Many of these survivors have come forward to tell their stories, or to re-tell them, now able to name their faceless rescuer._

…

_This network was not given a name by its members. Hugo Gruber, who went from the counterculture Swinjugend youth group to running Moser's network in her stead, said that the network never had formal organisation. "We only survived under the utmost secrecy. Alice taught me that if we had a name for ourselves, then __they_ _had a name for us, but if we remained nameless we didn't exist. No one knew everyone's names since we used codenames, no one knew how far the network stretched, and that's how we went under the radar. The Gestapo figured something was going on, of course, but they didn't have any real way of tracing it."_

_When asked about these codenames, Hugo smiles. "I was Strauß - Ostrich," he tells me, "Because I'm so tall. Vano [his co-leader in the later years of the war] was Schloss [Castle]."_

_Vano, sitting beside Hugo, nods sagely. "The Gestapo figured out some of these names," he tells me, "not that it helped them much. If you look into their files from that time, you'll see the name 'Steinkauz' a lot." _

_Hugo sees me perk up at the name, and he nods. "That's right. A Steinkauz is a kind of small owl here in Austria. But in the war, the Steinkauz was Alice." Hugo shows me a photo of Alice which he keeps in his house in downtown Vienna, which is busy with children and friends. The photo is of a younger Moser than I am used to seeing, perhaps taken before the outbreak of the war. "We never would have been able to do so much without Alice, and we wouldn't have survived like we did. She knew so much about codes and how to keep things secret, and this was before she went to America."_

_I ask how she knew so much._

_Hugo shrugs. "She was interested in that sort of stuff - she was mathematically inclined, had a good head for patterns. And she'd been hiding most of her life from her uncle for so long, I think hiding from the Nazis came naturally."_

_I go back to the codenames, and query the name of the jazz club and community centre near the heart of Vienna, which Hugo and Vano co-run. The centre is called 'Steinkauz Haus_'.

"_Yes," Hugo smiles, "we named it after her. It's her uncle's old house, you know. We got it after the war, and we knew we had to honor her in some way. The centre is full of her spirit - it's a place for music, and healing, and safety. I know Alice would have loved it."_

…

_Though the network, under Moser's direction, never bore a formal name during the war, after VE day it made its way into popular legend. The network which had for years existed without existing, which had kept its silence about its co-founder and leader for years, has finally gained a name: Die stillen Österreicher. _

_The Quiet Austrians._

_Now, for the first time in decades, those who have kept their silence are able to speak out in memory and in celebration._

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Alice Moser recognized as Righteous Among the Nations' _in _The Guardian_, 10 February 1976:

… _at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, a ceremony was hosted honoring Alice Moser, 'The Siren', for her efforts in rescuing Jewish people during the Holocaust._

_Several survivors spoke at the ceremony, including Lavan Alperstein, whom Moser smuggled out of Austria in 1938 as part of her musical tour, and the Zimmerman family, who fled from Vienna to Palestine in 1941 with money and direction from Moser and her network. _

_In addition to these anecdotal accounts of rescues, Hugo Gruber of the Quiet Austrians spoke about how the Siren contributed to the protection and rescue of Jewish people on an organisational and continental level._

_In attendance were many survivors and diplomats including the Austrian President, and German Chancellor. _

_Moser's medal and certificate of honor were accepted by her half-brother Thomas Johnson._

"_I am humbled and honored to accept this on behalf of my sister," Johnson said. "Alice was a very special person - she didn't crave the limelight, but when she had it she knew just how to use it. I know that if she were here to accept this honor herself she would thank her friends and allies who supported her in her drive to protect everyone she could, and recognize all those who gave their lives to the cause. I've been told that she often told survivors: 'be safe, and live well'. I hope that all of us here will be able to live in safety and prosperity, and remember Alice and what she fought for."_

* * *

Excerpt from '_Pulling Away the Curtain: Project Odyssey' _by Louis Bates, 1978:

… _upon the declassification of the Project Odyssey files, many of those involved in resistance fighting and activities during the war were shocked to learn that the 'Al' they had liased with, fought beside, even befriended, was none other than Alice Moser. Many have been surprised at how easily Moser seems to have gone undercover as a 'man', questioning how none she worked with realized the deception for what it was. _

_But it's important to remember that Moser was not only a spy well-trained in disguises, but often worked in low light, avoiding face-to-face interaction. Also, she worked under the premise of 'you see what you expect to see'. The Siren was a glamorous icon across Europe: a blonde, beautiful, dolled-up woman in a sweeping white dress, illuminated by stage lights. So the Siren would have looked different from Alice Moser in her day-to-day life, and so then the jump from Alice to 'Al' would have been even more drastic. One did not look at a thin boy in a cap and expect to see an international celebrity. _

_So while this revelation came as a shock to many, particularly in the French Resistance, for the most part none are overly put out by the deception. _

"_We were all keeping secrets to keep ourselves safe," said Bertie Somme, a former Maquisard. "So, Al was a woman. And so, that woman was the Siren. The way I see it, that means she had bigger balls than half the men on my team."_

* * *

Excerpt from article '_New Historical Biography "Queer Hero" celebrates the Siren's double-agent producer, Otto Klein_' in _The New York Times_, 1980:

… _author Michael Goriana says "one thing people like to ignore is that contemporaries of the Siren often highlight her bond with her handler and producer - they were assigned to each other, but it's clear they formed a relationship deeper than that of fellow agents. And I think a lot of that wilful ignorance comes out of his queer identity. Klein was outed posthumously by those seeking to destroy his reputation, and the waters have been very muddied. _

"_This book seeks to clarify the true Otto Klein. Yes, he lived his public life as a Nazi, just like the Siren did. He was an SSR agent. He was a Resistance member. He organised resistance activities, uncovered crucial information about the Nazis and HYDRA, and arranged rescues of refugees. He was also a gay man."_

* * *

Book published 1981: '_Spycraft and Songs: Alice Moser's Network of Widerstandsmitglieder (Resistance Members)'_

* * *

Excerpt from '_The Need to Revisit Female Spies in WWII' _by Wendy Alora in _History Today_, 1981:

… _after the declassification, Moser became a dramatic moment in war history. Her story has started a conversation about other female spies, many of whom also laid down their lives. As a result, historians are looking closer at spies and the underbelly of the war. Many books and articles, of varying quality, have been written about Moser's contributions. Academics and the public alike are curious about this sharply-intelligent woman who fooled the Nazis (and the wider public consciousness) for so long._

_It's important that we acknowledge the work she and many other dedicated women were doing for years, under the yoke of extremism, and open up new lines of academic enquiry._

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Siren Monument Unveiled in Brooklyn' _in the _New York Post_, 1982:

… _the bronze statue, pictured right, is a full-length figure of the Siren in performance dress. Artist Laura Hardwood has been commended for her work, particularly for her skill in mimicking the movement of wind across the figure, and her 3D rendering based on several archived photographs._

… _large ceremony to celebrate the unveiling in Brooklyn Bridge Park, attended by the Mayor and several of Moser's contemporaries. _

_The etching at the base of the statue reads:_

_The Siren  
Alice Moser, who sang so beautifully that they never heard her chipping away at the foundation beneath their feet._

* * *

S.H.I.E.L.D. internal memo, April 1984:

_Harding,_

_I hope to come by sometime in the next month to welcome our new junior recruits, though the business in Croatia may delay me. In the meantime, I want to stress that Alice Johnson should under no circumstances be shown any special treatment or censure. We are all aware of her notable relations, which I will admit hold special significance in S.H.I.E.L.D. particularly, but Agent Johnson deserves to make her own mark in the division. I trust you to handle it._

_\- Director Carter._

* * *

1992

S.H.I.E.L.D. had come a long way since Peggy had sat down with Howard and Phillips in a back-room office all those years ago.

Peggy stood in the main atrium of the Triskelion, dwarfed by the soaring ceiling and arching windows. The large metallic S.H.I.E.L.D. eagle sculpture cast a shadow over her as she walked past it in the dawn light.

Peggy was the last one left. Phillips had died years ago, surrounded by his family, and just months ago… she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as she thought of Howard. In some ways, his death had helped her realize that it was time for her to resign. Partly out of the knowledge that it was time to let S.H.I.E.L.D. grow beyond what she could offer, and partly because… well, she was tired. Jilí (and Daniel) had been nagging her to retire for years.

The Triskelion atrium was, unusually, empty. She'd chosen her hour well.

She walked the length of the atrium, finally coming to a halt in front of the Wall of Valor.

This Wall of Valor display was sleek and metallic, set in a stone wall. It had grown exponentially since they hung up the first one in Camp Lehigh: hundreds of agents had fallen over the years. Peggy knew each individual name; she didn't need them written on a wall to remember them. But on her final day as Director she'd found herself drawn here all the same.

Peggy drew in a breath, feeling every bit of her seventy one years. Old bullet wounds and scars ached, years after they'd been inflicted, and when she reached up to brush her white hair back from her face, her fingers ran over the lines around her eyes.

Peggy drew her shoulders straight, and began to say goodbye.

She went backwards through the years, her fingers sliding over each name as she silently thanked each agent for their service and their sacrifice. As the S.H.I.E.L.D. symbols began to turn into SSR symbols, the pinching feeling in her chest grew stronger.

She reached the very first line of names, and closed her eyes.

Moments or minutes later, she heard footsteps approaching. "Director Carter," came a low, familiar voice. "I was hoping I'd catch you before you headed out."

Peggy smiled, drew her fingers away from Alice's name, and brushed away a stray tear. "You never leave anything up to hope, Nick." She turned to see Agent Fury standing a few paces away in a neat suit, his intelligent dark eyes warm. Fury was steadily rising through the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D., not quite near the top yet, but near enough that he'd caught Peggy's notice.

"I might've known you'd be here," he admitted with a shrug. He looked from Peggy to the Wall of Valor, specifically the name she'd been touching when he arrived. "You knew her well, huh?"

"She was my friend," Peggy said. She let out a breath. "I'm glad I was able to finally put her name up here, though it was long after she deserved it."

Nick eyed her, almost bewildered. "Not much room for making friends in our line of work."

"No." Peggy turned and set a hand on his shoulder. "But there is a little room for finding people you trust, Nick." She saw his skeptical look, and almost smiled.

After today, she'd be relinquishing all control over the agency she'd spent forty years building. She'd had her discussions with Pierce, and the World Security Council, but Peggy also looked to the more junior members of S.H.I.E.L.D. Peggy knew better than to hope for a replacement exactly like herself. S.H.I.E.L.D. needed leaders who could foresee things that she no longer could, who could help the agency grow into the future.

"I know you don't believe me," she smiled at Nick. "But I'm right."

She squeezed his shoulder, then turned back to the Wall of Valor for one last look at that first line. She smiled.

And with that, Peggy Carter, civilian, turned on her heel and walked out of S.H.I.E.L.D.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Die Erinnerung an die Sirene_' [_The Memory of the Siren_] by Hans Schruben (1995) [Translated]:

_Thirty years ago I wrote the article 'The Mystery of the Siren'. I'd been ensnared by her story: the intrigue, the moral ambiguity, the tantalizing unknown. I concluded that "we must accept life without all the answers". _

_Since then the world has learned much about the Siren, much more than I ever hoped to learn, and it all made sense. Finally, all those nagging questions I had about her character had an answer. She was not a glamorous celebrity with an unusual private life. She was an undercover agent doing her best to cover up her actions with glamour and scandal. She orchestrated a deception so complete that even I, an objectively highly-skilled investigative journalist, could not see through it even twenty years later._

_Alice Moser has become an admirable part of our history, a hidden martyr. She knew what the world thought of her, how the world would remember her for years, and she persisted. The Siren knew there were more important things than image. _

_Since her re-emergence as a war hero, the Siren has inspired whole movements in academia, music, social justice, and wider culture. I have consumed each piece of media created about her since then, marvelling in just how wrong I was in 1965. _

_But now that the shock has faded, the Siren has once more faded to historical fact: Alice Moser is admirable, but static. Gone._

_The last mystery of the Siren is the question of her death. And I, at least, am at peace with it now._

_The Nazis were notorious for having destroyed many records before the Red Army took Berlin. And I am sure, somewhere in those burned records where not even the most determined investigator could find them, is the story of a songstress who fooled them up until the last moment, a songstress who died at the hands of her enemy. Still, we must accept life without all the answers._

_We may not know where Alice Moser's body lies, but now, finally, we can celebrate her spirit._

* * *

_**~ Isn't this place sweeter than heaven? ~** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit I've been playing a bit of a long con here - throughout the story, every time an 'article' refers to Alice as a Nazi or her achievements aren't recognized, I've made sure the article is dated before 1974. So don't worry, my loves, she's sure as heck getting recognized now! Though her connection with Steve and the Howlies is still on the DL.
> 
> (Also I just want to reiterate, this story isn'tgoing to overlap with 'The Wyvern' unfortunately, I'm intending to change some things with the MCU a little more than I did in that story.)
> 
> And thus marks the end of Part Three!


	53. PART FOUR - Chapter Forty Four

**Part Four: Revenants**

**~ _In song you are immortal ~_**

* * *

Steve stumbled to a halt in the middle of the blindingly bright square, his breath heaving in his chest and his heart pounding a mile a minute, like it had when he was young. He wheeled, staring. Everything he'd seen since blearily opening his eyes whirled through his mind: the fake room with the fake nurse and the fake radio broadcast, the glass and metal building full of men in heavy dark uniforms like HYDRA… he didn't _understand_. Alice would've played along with the charade, he thought, but that was never his style. He'd busted out and ran.

His body ached like it used to after a fever, and he felt sick to his stomach.

Maybe this - these soaring buildings with glowing signs whose brightly-colored images _moved_, with the strangely-shaped cars and throngs of strange people - maybe all this was a trick, too. HYDRA knew how to play with people's minds.

But as Steve kept turning, trying to absorb all the noise and color, he realized he recognized this place. He read the street signs with dawning horror.

Tires squealed behind him and he turned, lowering his center of gravity as he saw sleek dark cars with more uniformed men inside them pull up.

"At ease, soldier!"

He turned again to see that he'd been surrounded by dark cars, leaving him alone in a circle of vehicles and dark-suited men. The thronging pedestrians in the square were boxed out, staring at the commotion.

The man who'd spoken stood before Steve: a dark-skinned man in a completely black suit, wearing an _eyepatch. _Steve's brow furrowed. The man strode up to Steve.

"Look," he said, "I'm sorry about that little show back there, but… we thought it best to break it to you slowly."

Steve caught his breath. "Break _what_?"

The man met his eyes evenly. Around them the square was chaotic, noisy and bright, but the man exuded an aura of calm. "You've been asleep, Cap." Something about the way he said it sent Steve's stomach plunging. "For almost seventy years."

For a moment Steve just stared at him, bewildered. But then he broke eye contact, looking once more around the square - _Times Square._ He drew in a quick, sharp breath.

_No._

But it… it made sense. The way that this place was familiar and yet utterly, utterly different. The charade back in the fake hospital room.

_Almost seventy years. _He counted: from 1945, _almost _seventy years would be… sometime before 2015. His heart squeezed. The war, his friends, that last conversation with Peggy, everything he'd meant to do -

"You gonna be okay?" asked the man, and Steve's whirling thoughts coalesced.

"Yeah," he said instinctively. _How do I know? _"I just…" for some reason, his thoughts turned to a promise: _a week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club. Eight o'clock on the dot, don't you dare be late._ An impossible promise to dance with his friend at the wedding celebration that could never be. The white, white, world ahead of him.

His hands fell loose by his sides and his eyes fixed on the middle distance. "I had a date."

* * *

They put Captain Rogers in one of the sleek dark cars to get him out of the public eye. Fury - after introducing himself - sat in the back seat with the Captain and nodded for the driver to head off.

As they pulled away the Captain looked out the window, his hands in his lap, silent. Fury eyed him. He'd had dozens of discussions with S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors, psychologists, and historians about how the supersoldier might handle waking up in the twenty-first century. No one had predicted that he'd successfully bust out of their carefully-controlled holding facility and end up causing a scene in Times Square.

And Fury was finding it difficult to figure out what was going on in the guy's head. His face was expressive, reacting to each new thing he learned, but he didn't say much. Fury did notice the gleam of intelligence in his eyes, though, and reminded himself not to fall into the trap of treating Rogers like an old man.

After a few minutes of silent driving, Rogers drew a breath. "HYDRA…?"

Fury nodded. "You beat 'em, Cap. When you beat Schmidt and brought down the Valkyrie that put an end to the threat they posed. The SSR spent the rest of the war scouring out the last of them." Seeing the next question on Rogers's face, he continued: "The Allies won the war in 1945. A lot's happened since then of course, but there's never been another war like it since."

Rogers breathed, still looking out the window, absorbing the information. He didn't seem that surprised. Then his eyes tracked down to the clothes they'd put him, particularly the white shirt with the SSR logo. "The SSR?"

Fury nodded again. "In the 50s it became the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division." Rogers shot him a _look_, and Fury almost smiled. "We call it S.H.I.E.L.D., for short. It was founded by your friends, actually: Chester Phillips, Howard Stark, and Margaret Carter. I'm the current director."

Rogers's brows pinched together at the names of his friends, but then he corralled his expression again. He looked away, but Fury felt every iota of his attention still fixed on him. "And did you… did the SSR…" he swallowed. "Did they ever find Alice Moser?"

Fury cocked an eyebrow. "The Siren?"

"Yes, I… I worked with her."

"I know." Fury had seen all the files relating to Steve Rogers, even the ones that hadn't been declassified. He furrowed his brow again, noting the way Rogers was still looking out the window, as if half-listening. "No, they never found her. MIA, presumed dead."

Fury watched closely as Rogers's shoulders hunched together, making him bow a little in his seat. His eyes went unfocused.

"You knew her well," Fury said, almost a question.

"We were…" Rogers' voice had gone croaky. "Yes. I did."

"They never found her," Fury repeated more slowly, "but… she sure made her mark. Files about Project Odyssey were declassified in the '70s, and the world just about lost its mind when we found out she'd been spying on the Nazis all along."

Rogers's head jumped up and he faced Fury with wide eyes. "Everyone knows what she did?"

"Sure do. She's a war hero."

Rogers turned back to stare out the window, so Fury couldn't see his face. But he did see the Captain's hands twist together in his lap.

After what felt like hours, they pulled into an underground garage.

Fury cleared his throat. "Captain Rogers, we're going to make sure you're alright. We'll get you into medical, but then we'll start getting you set up. All the support you need. I know this must be… difficult, but you're not alone."

Fury tried to keep his tone _warm _\- he wasn't used to comforting people.

"Okay," Rogers said. He straightened his shoulders and climbed out of the car. Fury echoed the movement and they walked together to medical, tailed by half a dozen agents. As they walked, Fury mulled over what he'd learned so far.

_I don't know what it is about that Moser woman that cracks the toughest people I know_.

That reminded him: now that it was certain Roger was going to live, he had better pay a visit to Carter.

* * *

It didn't take Steve long to figure out the internet. Though that didn't stop every single person (mostly S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, since they were the only people who he really spoke to) in the next few days asking him if he'd been having trouble. From what he'd seen, most _babies_ nowadays could use the internet to some extent. It was all set up to be intuitive. Of course he'd figured it out.

His search history told a very sad story:

_Alice Moser_

_Bucky Barnes_

_Steve Rogers_

_Peggy Carter_

_Tom Johnson_

_Howard Stark_

_The 107th Tactical Team_

He was pretty sure S.H.I.E.L.D. could tell what he looked up on the tablet they'd given him, but he didn't care.

Everything he learned overwhelmed him. Not only was there sixty six years of history and culture and _life _that he had no understanding of, but he also had to deal with those sudden losses he'd been dealt before he went down on the Valkyrie. To the world, it had been decades since Bucky fell and Alice went missing. To Steve, it had been days. And they still hadn't recovered Bucky's body, still hadn't figured out what exactly had happened to Alice. The vast amount of information suddenly at his fingertips was almost too much.

And there was so much _death._

Tom had died five years ago, an old man surrounded by his family. Steve was too overwhelmed to cry for him. It was just… more death, on top of all of it. When he dreamed, he dreamed of Alice and Tom on stage, bright eyed and breathless with laughter, singing together. He read a little about Tom's life before it hurt too much and he had to close the search window.

He spent a long time researching Alice. They might not have figured out why she'd gone missing, but the world sure knew a whole lot more about her. He read memorials and articles, overwhelmed and proud and grieving.

It seemed Peggy had been right: Alice really was dead. And if she hadn't died in '45, she was almost certainly dead by now. He spent a few hours reading about different people's investigations into her disappearance, before he decided it hurt too much. Everything he'd ever known had come to an end, like a well rounded story - except her. And it seemed most everybody had given up trying to find out the ending. _How can they still not know?_

The first night after his explosive awakening, Steve had sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands, unmoving. Unsleeping.

His suspicions about S.H.I.E.L.D. monitoring his search history were confirmed when an agent named Maria Hill visited him in his room in the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and started asking him very targeted questions: about his team (which he'd learned had since been called the _Howling Commandos_), about his impression of the SSR when he'd been alive, and then...

"And what do you know about the disappearance of the Siren?" Hill asked, glancing down at her tablet as if the question didn't matter all that much.

Steve remained relaxed and loose-limbed where he sat on his cot. "Why?" he asked.

She looked up. "I'm sorry?"

"Why are you asking?"

She blinked once. "We thought that maybe you might have more information than what made its way into written records," she said lightly.

He fought off a scowl. _Right. _They'd seen him searching for information about her disappearance, and they wanted to know why. Maybe they thought he'd had something to do with it.

He took a measured breath. "I don't know anything about it," he said truthfully, and met her eyes. "I was hoping that after almost seventy years, you lot would know more about it than me."

She held his gaze for a few more moments, measuring his honesty. Finally she nodded incrementally, and moved on to the next question.

* * *

The months that followed were objectively busy, though Steve felt as if he were gliding through them, detached from the people around him. S.H.I.E.L.D. kept him on base for the first few months, measuring his vitals, getting him 'adjusted'. This mostly consisted of various meetings with all kinds of S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel - doctors, agents, psychologists, scientists, soldiers, even human resources. They soon realized that he wouldn't be left with any lasting damage from his time in the ice. He was whole and alive, untouched by the years.

He didn't see Fury much after that first day, which he found himself disappointed by - Fury was one of the few who didn't walk on tenterhooks around him.

After a few months they got him an apartment in Manhattan. They kept saying that they didn't want to rush him or overwhelm him. Steve didn't like being babied, but he didn't really care.

He didn't know how to fill the hours of each day. Every purpose that had driven him before was decades old; pointless. In Brooklyn he used to work all kinds of jobs to make rent and pay for his medication - now, he had S.H.I.E.L.D. footing the bill for everything. Then in the war there was HYDRA, and the Nazis, and Alice.

He hadn't been sure what his post-war life would look like, but he sure hadn't expected this: himself, alone, with nothing to do and no one he knew. A whole government division watching his every move - and it became increasingly clear that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't know what to do with him either.

So he sank hours into reading. Some of it about his time, but mostly about what he'd missed. He turned it into a task: dutifully studying the history that had passed him by.

He watched a few old film reels about Captain America. It was the stuff he would've laughed at with his team once upon a time ("_When tough times turn tougher, when hope's on the ropes, here's the man to knock the Axis on their backs-es!"_) but now… when he couldn't stand it a second longer, he turned off the screen, and was met with his own blank expression.

He slept a lot, when his brain would let him. He didn't get a lot of sleep in the war.

He tried not to think about Alice and Bucky too much. Sometimes he caught himself sitting, unseeing, thinking about the look in Bucky's eyes before he'd fallen from the train, or the way Alice had smelled that last time they'd parted ways in the Alps, and he'd have to give himself a shake and find some distraction.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had given him files on most of the people he'd once known, on thick cardboard with typewritten lines, as if the sight of modern printing would give him a heart attack. Morita, Falsworth, Dugan, Gabe, Dernier, Stark… all gone. Most of them had had kids since, lived full lives. As he read about all their accomplishments he felt so proud… and also alienated. He didn't know the men they'd become.

He'd learned that some of the people he'd once known were still alive, but he wasn't ready to see them. Whenever he thought about facing them… his skin crawled and his gut churned with fear.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had done up his apartment like the apartments he was used to seeing back in the forties, with modern appliances, but that didn't stop the place from looking stark. He didn't have any real belongings anymore. All of his stuff was gone or in museums. S.H.I.E.L.D. had said they'd try to track it all down, but they said that getting it back might be legally tricky.

Steve didn't really care: it was just stuff. He'd lost _people. _

He started going for walks.

He still hadn't decided if New York was more familiar, or more alien. He supposed it might be both, and it might also be that he'd come back different too. In the war, when he saw himself coming back, it was with Alice and Bucky. But maybe if he'd had the chance to go back to _his _New York in 1945, he would still have walked the streets like a stranger.

Bucky would be excited by all the changes, Steve thought. He'd run his eyes over the sleek, shiny cars, and goggle up at the colorful changing billboards (they were _digital_, he'd learned). Alice would have pointed out the parts that hadn't changed: the familiar shape of the Empire State soaring above it all, the old sandstone buildings, the way people scowled when you got in their way. The subway was still gross.

No one recognized Steve. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been worried about him going out by himself (not that he imagined he was ever truly alone), but their fears had been unfounded: it hadn't been publicised that he was still alive, after all, and no one expected to bump into Captain America on a New York sidewalk.

A week after moving into the apartment he started drawing. He started slow, like he had after the serum - he had to adjust to all the changes. They had better art supplies nowadays.

He started drawing the city: things that had stayed the same, things that had changed. He found himself drawing old landscapes in an effort to keep the memory of them from slipping away. He drew the new and strange shapes that caught his eye.

He had a cafe he liked sitting at to draw. It was quiet, for Manhattan, and the waitress was nice (if she reminded him a little bit of Alice, he tried his best to ignore that fact).

He'd taken up boxing, too. He hadn't boxed since basic training, and before that, when Bucky used to teach him. He liked the numbing repetition of it, how it let him feel as if he was _doing _something. The owner of the gym was good to him, too - let him train by himself once the gym was closed, and let him bring the extra bags since he kept breaking them.

He mostly tried not to break them, but it was hard. On a late night when he couldn't sleep, restraint went out the window as hundreds of images flickered behind his eyes. All the awful things he'd seen in the war, real scenes and imagined ones: Bucky falling. A white expanse of nothing rushing up to meet him. Peggy telling him that Alice was dead. A dozen imagined deaths for Alice, each more sickening than the last.

One good thing about the future was modern psychology; the various doctors and psychologists he'd seen had shown him some good tactics for dealing with the things that haunted him. They'd been helping with his PTSD, which was something they didn't have a name for in his day, but which he'd apparently brought with him to the twenty first century.

But sometimes all he could bring himself to work on was to drag himself down to the gym in the dead of night and take out his shivery imaginations on the boxing bag; until it inevitably flew across the room. _Oops._

And that was where, one night in May, Nick Fury found him.

* * *

"Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"

"Yeah." In truth he'd never understood any of the science behind the thing. Howard hadn't really understood either (though apparently that hadn't stopped him dredging it up). Steve had seen the Tesseract open up a window to the universe inside the _Valkyrie_: star systems and nebulae glittering right before his eyes. He'd seen it absorb the Red Skull in a beam of rainbow light. When the cube had fallen through the floor and disappeared, he'd been glad.

_It's back. So am I._

Steve trudged away across the gym floor.

"You should've left it in the ocean."

* * *

When Steve arrived on the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft carrier, it almost made him smile: the design hadn't changed all that much from his day. Just a slab of concrete in the ocean buzzing with activity. After his night reading up on the information packet S.H.I.E.L.D. had given him, which had sent his head spinning, and then the hero worship (tempered by seventy years of legend) from Agent Coulson on the bizarre-looking Quinjet, he'd felt a little out of step.

He met the others. Agent Romanoff, who Steve would've recognised as a dangerous woman even without the brief in the S.H.I.E.L.D. packet; she had that glint in her eyes like Peggy. Like Alice. Then Banner, whose mild manners and soft speech reminded him of Erskine. Steve almost shook his head - he couldn't keep comparing this world to the world he knew before. He had to take the measure of these people and get to know them as themselves.

Then the aircraft carrier started flying. _Well well. Future indeed._

He thought back to Stark's flying car presentation as he followed Romanoff and Banner inside. _Bucky, if you could'a seen this… _he shook his head.

And then the ship went _invisible._

He gave Fury ten bucks.

* * *

Steve had been trying to catch up with modern technology, but pretty quickly the talk on the helicarrier turned to spectrometers and worldwide camera surveillance, and the scope of it boggled his mind. He kept quiet, listening. Watching.

He got the sense that S.H.I.E.L.D. still didn't really know what to do with him. He stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the hustle and bustle of the helicarrier. It almost reminded him of the landing craft waiting in the ocean before D-Day, when he'd had to shake hands and smile for the cameras. But at least then, he'd had a purpose beyond being a symbol for the troops. He'd marched off that craft along with the rest of the men and onto the treacherous beachfront.

But then they got word in that Loki had been sighted in Stuttgart, Germany.

"Captain?" Fury called, and Steve looked over. "You're up."

Steve drew in a breath and his shoulders straightened. _This _is what they needed him for. He could handle that.

* * *

The new uniform _pinched. _But it was good to see his shield again. It had a fresh coat of paint and a new harness, but under it all he sensed that impenetrable, thrumming metal. He'd gone down in the Valkyrie with this shield, brought it with him into every battle. He could still see how it looked in Bucky's hands before he was knocked out of the train, still remembered how his heart had pounded when he watched Alice hoist it on her arm in an Italian forest.

He shook away the thoughts.

The art auction in Stuttgart was just the sort of place Alice would've thrived in, Steve thought. In fact she might have even attended a party in this building once for all he knew. Half the old performance halls and cultural centres in Europe apparently claimed they'd hosted the Siren at one time or another.

Steve didn't get a chance to go inside. He arrived as Loki - in green robes and with big golden horns on his head - brandished his scepter at an old man.

"There are always men like you," the man said in his German accent, with derision in his eyes.

Moments later Steve leaped in to save him. "Y'know, last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing over everybody else," Steve said, eyeing down the sharp-eyed alien, "we ended up disagreeing." Because he'd barely been in Loki's presence a minute, but he recognised a tyrant when he saw one.

"The soldier," Loki taunted.

It was almost a relief when Steve was able to start beating him up.

They tussled a few minutes, and Steve found himself surprised at Loki's strength; he was much stronger than even the Red Skull. But it all came to an end when a man in red and gold metal armor dropped out of the sky and helped Steve corner Loki. They stood together as if they'd planned it, and Loki raised his hands.

"Mr Stark," Steve panted.

"Captain."

* * *

Steve wasn't exactly sure why Stark wanted to press his buttons so much. One thing was certain, Stark junior definitely had a sharper edge than his father.

But then a lightning god showed up and stole Loki, and Steve jumped out of the Quinjet. About ten minutes later Steve held his Vibranium shield up against Thor's crackling hammer and he had a moment before it connected in which he realized that this was one of those things that someone - Alice or Bucky or anyone else in his team - would have once yelled at him for. He wondered if someone would yell at him for this. He wondered if he'd live to be yelled at.

The hammer connected with an ear-splitting sound like a gonging bell and the forest went flat. But Steve stood, the sole unmoved thing, and allowed himself a self-satisfied smile.

* * *

The talk about unintelligible scientific things and outer space armies got worse once Stark was on the helicarrier, and Steve was really goddamn tired. He couldn't make heads or tails of Stark. He didn't understand half the things he said.

(When Fury made a reference to flying monkeys Steve remembered seeing that movie in a Brooklyn theatre with Bucky. He'd written to Alice about it right after. Bucky had said that Steve was like the scarecrow without a brain, Bucky was the Wizard, and Alice was Dorothy).

So Steve watched, and listened. He might never get to Stark and Banner's level, but he was sick of feeling two steps behind.

* * *

In the lab, Stark started pushing all Steve's buttons again and it was starting to work. Stark admitted to hacking S.H.I.E.L.D., which incensed Steve. This wasn't how SSR's successor was supposed to work, and who were they if they couldn't trust their own team? But Stark was purposefully abrasive. Steve didn't know what his problem was.

But then: "Steve," Banner said quietly. "Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you."

And he realized he'd been watching, and listening, but maybe not in the right direction. He'd been so taken in by the future with its bright lights and flying helicarriers and head-spinning science speak. He hadn't felt useful anywhere. He might have the serum, but nowadays they had unimaginable power and weaponry, and men in flying suits of armor. He'd forgotten that he hadn't always been so focused on orders, on following the plan.

"Just find the cube," he grit out. And then… he made himself useful.

* * *

  
When he flipped open the '_Phase 2_' crate to see the HYDRA weaponry, Steve understood what it meant when people said they _saw red_. He wondered how Banner could control rage like this, the kind that seared through your veins and made your hands shake.

This was all his, Bucky, and Alice's efforts down the drain.

He took a minute to manage the anger - _thanks, modern psychology_ \- before he grabbed a HYDRA blaster and went upstairs again.

* * *

He might've done the breathing and the calming down, but still. He was mad. He yelled at Fury, and when Stark got up on his high horse he snapped at him, too. In the bright lights of the lab they all started yelling at each other and the tension in the air crackled around them.

Steve knew he'd gone too far when he told Stark to '_stop pretending to be a hero'_, but he couldn't help the anger running through him. It felt like finally, _finally_, he had an excuse to let it all out. At Stark, at this whole mess he'd found himself flailing in the middle of. He wasn't a soldier any longer, he was a _symbol. _And what use was that?

But then Stark said '_the only thing special about you came out of a bottle' _and his anger flared right up again. So he challenged Stark to a fight.

_Put on the suit._

Bruce told them all about how he'd tried to kill himself, and then the computers went wild, then Steve challenged Tony to another fight-

The lab blew up.

Steve and Tony found themselves on the floor of the smoking lab entrance, open-mouthed.

"Put on the suit," Steve urged.

"Yeah," Tony agreed.

* * *

It felt good to work together with Stark on the engine. Like he was useful again. Stark seemed remarkably good-natured to him all of a sudden, and Steve wondered if he too had realized that the anger between them didn't _belong _to them. It had been a product of other people, other times.

* * *

When Steve heard about Coulson, his heart dropped.

_No_, he thought, still panting from his encounter with the gunmen on the outside of the helicarrier. _It wasn't supposed to be like this anymore. _

Why did everyone around him die?

* * *

Fury tossed a handful of blood-stained trading cards on the glass Helicarrier table.

"Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes."

* * *

When he and Stark argued about it later, in the cold silence of the containment room with the dark stain on the wall, Steve asked: "Is this the first time you lost a soldier?" Because that's the only way this made sense. He, Tony, Coulson… Bucky, Alice… they were all soldiers. They died, but it was for a _purpose. _There had to be a purpose.

But then Stark turned on him with _rage _in his eyes and spat: "We are _not _soldiers."

Steve eyed him evenly. _We. _Stark had said _we. _

_Who am I, _Steve thought, _if I'm not a soldier?_

The answer came: _a husband. A friend. _But those… those were gone.

Stark looked a little embarrassed by his vehement outburst, then swallowed. "I'm not marching to Fury's fife."

"Neither am I," Steve realized. "He's got the same blood on his hands that Loki does." His heart pounded, even though disobeying his CO wasn't exactly new territory for him. "But right now we've got to put that behind us and get this done."

They started getting back to the point, bouncing ideas off each other, and it really didn't take Stark long: within a minute, he'd figured it all out. _Stark Tower._

As they marched off to find Stark's suit and a Quinjet, Steve thought: _Alice would've liked him_. He questioned the thought, but realized it was true. Tony wasn't his father. This sharp man with a hundred different faces who'd been so torn up over Coulson's loss, Alice would've liked him. That made Steve smile.

_Maybe I don't need to forget about Alice and Bucky. I can… I can take them with me._

Bolstered by that realization he retrieved his shield, drew himself tall, and got his team together. He walked with Romanoff on his left and Barton on his right and it wasn't the same, not at all, but it felt for the first time like he was where he was supposed to be.

* * *

It was strange fighting in New York. The aliens poured out over streets familiar and strange to Steve, making his heart stop in his chest. If any place was home to him, this was it. And they were tearing it apart. So he stepped up, and started leading.

"Call it, Cap," Stark told him.

So he did. He knew this city like the back of his hand, could see the map of it in his head. And he'd seen all these people fight (he'd spent all that time watching, after all) so he could see how it'd all come together, if only they'd trust him. He realized that he trusted them.

He gave them their orders. And they followed.

They came together as a team and started listening to each other and… _oh. This is how it's meant to be._

* * *

The battle, when he remembered it later, existed in moments.

He saw Thor on top of the Empire State building and remembered visiting the top when he was twelve, with Alice and Bucky. Alice had said then that New York was her home. _Can't get a view like this anywhere else in the world. _

Steve's fist had clenched behind his shield.

Natasha spiralling up to grab an alien aircraft speeding past - _she might be crazier than me._

The civilians in the bank with their tear-streaked faces, the relentless wave of aliens… he'd thought HYDRA was hard, but this… he didn't know he was up for this job.

Thor helping him up. "Ready for another bout?"

"What, you getting sleepy?" Because he didn't know how to do anything other than get up, keep going. Thor saw the truth of his exhaustion in his eyes, but didn't comment.

Stark disappearing into the darkly shimmering portal with a nuclear missile on his back.

When the aliens collapsed around them and a starburst erupted in that strange black window into space, Thor looked to Steve. Steve's heart had shriveled. _We are not soldiers._

"Close it," he'd said.

Natasha was a soldier, and she didn't question him. Steve watched the edges of the portal shiver and shrink.

And then at the last possible second Stark made the most dramatic entrance that Steve had ever seen.

"Son of a gun," he grinned as he watched the red and gold armor flashing in the sunlight, and realized he couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled.

His sharp spike of sudden fear eased when the Hulk plucked Stark out of the sky.

Not five seconds after being awoken from what looked like death, Tony had them all laughing. _That's a guy I need on my team._

* * *

After Loki, and S.H.I.E.L.D., they went to get Schwarma. They didn't talk. It was nice.

* * *

When Thor and Loki disappeared a day later with the Tesseract, Steve felt genuine sorrow at farewelling a new friend. But if this was the last time he ever saw that glowing blue cube, it'd be too soon. He shook hands and clasped shoulders with his friends, surprised at the genuine affection he felt for each of them. They'd made something special, the six of them.

When he got on his bike and switched on the engine, the others were already leaving. They were returning to their various homes and jobs: Stark Tower, S.H.I.E.L.D., Asgard. Steve wasn't going with them - he wasn't even going back to his apartment in Manhattan.

He was going off alone. But, for the first time in a while, he didn't feel alone.

* * *

Three days later, Steve found himself standing before a closed door inside a D.C. retirement home, his hands loose by his sides and the sound of the retreating nurse's footsteps echoing in his ears.

_Oh, I'm not ready for this_.

He drew in a breath. _Too bad. I'm here now._ He lifted one hand and knocked on the door.

"Come in," called a soft, accented voice. Steve felt his guts twist.

He pushed open the door.

The space beyond was nice. The nurse who'd escorted him had told him all about the facility, how each resident had their own apartment space complete with gardens. The room before him appeared to be a living and dining room, with soft off-white carpet, bookshelves lining the walls, a round table, and windows in the far wall overlooking the green garden, the view obscured by gently fluttering curtains. Photos and art hung on the walls. The place looked lived in.

And at the table, wearing a neat knitted cardigan and a shawl, sat Peggy Carter.

Steve could not move. He stood fixed in the doorway, staring, and Peggy stared back.

He'd been worried that he wouldn't recognize his old friend. But, to his great relief, he did: those dark, intelligent eyes peering out of the weathered face were Peggy's, alright, as was the poise she held herself with even though her shoulders were bent and her posture somehow more withered. Her silver hair hung in soft waves, and she sat with a steaming cup of tea before her.

Peggy eyed him back evenly for a few long, silent moments. Steve wondered - _they said she's sick, does she… does she recognize me?_

Then she opened her mouth to speak. Her lips seemed to wobble. "You're late," she said in a familiar voice weathered by age.

Steve still could not move, but he felt as if his insides had dissolved. His throat closed up and his vision blurred. "I…" he croaked. Swallowed. "I'm sorry-"

Seeing the tears in his eyes, Peggy's expression seemed to crumble. "Oh, Steve. Come here."

As if unstuck by her words, Steve stumbled through the doorway and almost ran to her side. She stood, unsteadily and shakily, and by the time she'd fully straightened he had put his arms around her.

Peggy felt paper thin under his hands, a little shaky from weakness and emotion, but he knew better than to see her as weak. She patted him softly on the back as he shook even more violently than her, and he knew that under the lined skin and silver hair was the same strong Peggy he'd known in the war.

After a moment, she gently plucked at the back of his shirt to get him to give her a bit of distance. She looked up into his face, her gleaming eyes searching.

She let out a shaky breath. "You look just like you did when you left."

Steve shrugged one shoulder awkwardly. "I think my face is the one thing that hasn't changed since then."

A small, sad smile lifted her lips. "You may be right about that, my dear." She drew in a breath. "Come, let's sit. We've got a lot to talk about. Thank you for saving the world again, by the way."

  
As the nurses had warned him, Peggy was a little forgetful, but still pretty sharp. They sat together at her table with a pot of tea.

One of the first things she did was to lay her hand on his. "Steve, I… I know you must have found out by now, but I wanted to apologise. We… never found her. Alice."

Steve felt alarmed to see the tears glittering in her eyes. "Peg, that's… it's alright, I'm not angry."

She shook her head. "I knew you wouldn't be. You're too decent for that." Her lip quirked, even though her eyes still gleamed with tears. "But I promised you we'd keep looking. We did, but… after twenty years, thirty, forty - the trail went cold."

His heart wrenched. He didn't know what to say. More than anything else he wanted answers, but he knew Peggy couldn't give him that. He didn't blame her at all, though he could see this weighed heavy on her.

Peggy cleared her throat. "I can tell you all about it, when you like, though maybe I'm not the one to ask."

"That's alright," Steve said, his throat clogged. "I just…" he shook his head and looked away to the small glimpse he had of Peggy's garden. "I haven't really talked about Alice since I woke up. No one knows I even knew her, really, and this world… everyone accepts that she's gone. Which I know she is, one way or another, but I guess…" he hung his head. "I guess I'm not ready to let her go so easily."

Peggy sighed, and he looked up at her face. "I wish I could offer you advice. I've spent almost seventy years going from one day to the next without knowing what happened to Alice. Feeling like I failed her. I suppose…" her eyes drifted away. "I suppose I found it easier after a while to accept that she was…" she looked back almost guiltily.

"That she's dead," Steve finished gently. "It's okay, Peg. I knew before I went down in the _Valkyrie_ that she probably was. I don't think I" - his eyes burned with tears again - "I don't think I'd have been able to do it if I thought there was a chance she was still out there. Maybe even then, I knew she was gone." He looked down into his own lap again. A silence passed. "I guess I don't really know how to go on without knowing what happened."

"I'm sorry," Peggy said softly.

For a few long moments, neither of them spoke.

Peggy broke the silence. "About what you said before you… went down," she began.

Steve looked up to see something lighter than grief in her eyes. Despite himself, he felt his lips quirk. "Which part?"

She mock-scowled at him. "Don't you start that with me, young man-"

"I'm older than you," he pointed out, smiling now.

She leaned back in her chair, squinting at him, before reaching for a manila folder on the far edge of the table. "When I heard you were back, I thought I had better get this out of storage." She opened the folder and slid it across the table.

Steve looked down, and instantly recognized the piece of creased paper before him. It was much more faded than the last time he'd seen it, but he knew it well. The tightly-printed French, the scrawled signatures. He let out a long breath and reached out for the paper, his fingers shaking. When he felt the paper and ink under his fingers, his heart skipped. He traced Alice's name.

Even though for him it had only been a matter of months, that night already felt like a hundred years ago. "I suppose you figured out most of the details by now," he said to Peggy. "The night we liberated Soives, we ended up at a little village church with a few hours to spare, and…" he smiled. "I don't even know whose idea it was. We were talking, and then all of a sudden we were talking about getting married. It took us a while to convince the pastor, but when he understood what we were asking he was all for it." Steve tapped the table absentmindedly. "Didn't have rings, or clothes other than our uniforms, and only the pastor's wife to be our witness, but it actually turned out… pretty great." His voice trailed away. _No matter where you are, or where I am, I love you. I always will. _

Peggy shook her head, smiling. "Totally against mission protocol."

"Well, you know me. I was never much of a one for the rules."

She laughed, a pleasant rasping sound. He looked up to see her giving him a contemplative look. "Steve, you mentioned earlier that no one knows you and Alice knew each other. This" - she nodded at the marriage certificate - "is something I've agonized over for years."

Steve cocked his head.

Peggy went on. "For years I never told anyone what you'd confided in me. Alice's work had to remain confidential for a time, so I saw it as part of the secret. And when we declassified her files I told Tom, and the Howlies, and some others. Tom actually held onto the certificate for a while, but when he passed" - Steve felt another stab of pain - "his daughter returned it to me." Peggy met his eyes. "I'm sorry if you've felt isolated by it remaining a secret. We weren't sure if it was something you and Alice would have wanted spread about, and-"

Steve smiled, and Peggy abruptly stopped talking. "Gee, Peg. When I realized how long it'd been, I thought every aspect of my life would've been written in a book by now. It's… it's nice to know I've still got some secrets." That made her smile. "Alice and I wanted to tell you all one day, but we…" his throat clogged. "It wasn't supposed to be some grand reveal. All we ever wanted was to live together."

Peggy's eyes gleamed. "I'm so sorry, Steve."

A silence passed.

"I'm just glad," Steve said heavily, "that she didn't have to hear about Bucky. And me. Whatever happened to her… she didn't lose us."

"No," Peggy said softly. "We lost her."

They spoke for the rest of the afternoon. Peggy told him all about Tom: his life of service and revolution, stepping in to tell his sister's story. Steve had found out most of it from the intern already, but Peggy told him about Tom's family and all they'd achieved and become. When Peggy told him the name of Tom's eldest daughter, Steve broke down in tears.

Peggy made more tea.

He learned all about the life Peggy had led: founding S.H.I.E.L.D. and the triumphs and lows that had come with that. She showed him photos of her children and grandchildren. Then the topic turned to the Battle of New York, and Steve told her about his team - the Avengers.

Late in the afternoon Peggy was growing tired, but she propped her chin on her hand and gave him a searching look. "You were so determined to be in the Army when I first met you. Why was that?"

Steve shrugged. "At first because my dad had been a soldier. But then… because I saw what was going on in Europe, and I knew I had to get over there. To help put a stop to it."

Peggy smiled. "You've always been good at finding solutions that no one else sees. Good at recognizing the capabilities of the people around you and leading them in a way that makes them shine. You are a leader at heart, Steve. The world might not be so much in need of a man who can outrun a car and lift it over his head, but the world is _always _in need of leaders with kind hearts."

Steve nodded slowly. "The night before Project Rebirth, Erskine made me promise him that I'd stay who I was: _not a good soldier_, he said_, but a good man._"

"Exactly. He might have given you the serum to help fight a very specific problem at the time, but I think he knew that given the chance, you could do so much more than fight. You could _build._"

Unbidden, Steve thought of the team he'd fought with in New York. It had felt like between the six of them they had built something, that day. Something with potential.

As if sensing his thoughts, Peggy said: "So what now, Steve?"

He looked up into her face. "I'm not sure. I was thinking of… traveling a little. Hitting the road, clearing my head. Then… I don't know."

She nodded slowly. "Do you think you might end up on the west coast?"

The question made him frown. "Maybe. Why?"

"Well…" she said slyly. "There's an old friend of mine that I'd like you to meet."

* * *

As far as S.H.I.E.L.D. knew, Steve was off finding himself. Fury had said he wasn't keeping tabs on him, which Steve half believed. He rode from one state to the next, an echo of his USO tour in '44, but without the screaming crowds and kissing babies. And without that godawful song.

Unlike when he'd been living in New York before the battle, he did occasionally get recognized. His face was all over the news these days along with the rest of the Avengers, after all. Though not that many people in small town Colorado expected to see Captain America cruise through on a motorbike.

But his wandering had an end goal. A few weeks after leaving D.C., he found himself driving between the soaring red pylons of the Golden Gate Bridge. He half-smiled to himself as he eyed the bridge, admiring the flashes of deep blue ocean to the side. He remembered when they finished building this bridge. He'd been nineteen at the time.

From the bridge he had about a fifteen minute drive until he pulled up outside a narrow-fronted Victorian townhouse just outside the city center. When he turned off his bike's engine the street seemed relatively quiet. He stretched his arms, eyeing the house before him. It was beautiful, with a soft blue facade and pot plants on either side of the door.

He set his hands on his hips and glanced up and down the street. _Well, you've come this far._

He strode up the steps to the front door and knocked three times.

Steve spotted movement behind the frosted glass a few moments before the door swung open to reveal a twenty-something year old kid wearing tight jeans and glasses. The kid's eyes went comically wide as he took in the sight of Captain America on his doorstep.

"Uh, hi," Steve said with an attempt at a polite smile. "I think… I'm here to see your grandmother?"

The kid nodded, still wide eyed, and stepped aside. "She's in the kitchen," he said in a strained voice.

"Thanks," Steve said. He stepped inside the home, which was more modern than its exterior but with touches of history: black and white photographs on the wall, a glimpse of a record player in the sitting room to his right. Steve looked around, trying to figure out where the kitchen was (since the kid was still standing by the door). He heard a soft _clink _behind one door at the far end of the corridor, and decided to give that a try.

The door creaked slightly as he opened it, and he silently congratulated himself at the sight of an oven and fridge. But where was… he stepped inside and turned until he spotted the small table at the far end of the kitchen, backlit by a window with paisley drapes. An old woman sat at the table, her hair a shade of burnished silver and her eyes sharp and dark in her lined face. She'd been doing something on an iPad resting on the table, but at the sound of his entry she looked up and her eyes locked on him.

Steve swallowed under her gaze.

Finally, the woman spoke. "I was wondering when you'd show up."

That made Steve smile. "It's nice to finally meet you, Jilí."

She smiled in reply. "Thought you'd be smaller."

He shrugged. "I grew."

"So I hear." Then, faster than he would have expected for a woman of her age, she slapped the seat across from her. "Sit down, Steve. I think we've got a lot to discuss."

"Yes, ma'am."

Jilí (or _Agent Kreisky_, as she had been known professionally) was just as old as Peggy, but either by luck or chance had hung onto her health a little longer. When Peggy had told Steve about her, she had confided _I think death is afraid of her_, and after just a few minutes in Jilí's company Steve thought he knew what Peggy meant.

Jilí was a kind host, having her grandson make tea and asking after Steve's wellbeing after _that alien business_, but there was a sharpness to her, unfaded by years, that he took note of. He'd only ever known of Jilí through Alice's letters, but he'd known then that she was what his ma used to call a _self-assured woman. _More importantly, she had been Alice's friend and confidant, the woman who had taken it upon herself to break into Alice's uncle's house after Alice hadn't been heard from for a few days, the woman who had not only risen to meet Alice's growing resistance, but had actively encouraged it.

She didn't beat around the bush much, either. Once she'd shooed away her round-eyed grandson and settled creakily in her chair, she fixed her gaze on Steve.

"Now, you'll see all sorts of rot on the internet," she began. "Hundreds of young and ambitious would-be-detectives have put their minds to Alice's disappearance, and you'll find their work all over the message boards and forums. But there's nothing on the internet that can hold a candle to what's in here." She tapped her head.

Peggy had told him some of it, but the assuredness in Jilí's eyes made Steve pause. "You looked for her," he said softly.

"Of course I did! I looked for her for thirteen years." Jilí's eyes went sad. "I'm sorry I had to stop."

He shook his head. "No, you… thirteen years." He blew out a breath. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Thank me by listening. I don't expect you to continue the investigation - there's not much to continue, I'm afraid, but I'm old. If anyone can be relied upon to _remember, _to do justice to Alice and her story, then it's you. So listen up."

Steve pulled in his chair, straightened his shoulders, and listened.

Jilí went over each painstaking detail of her thirteen-year-long investigation, the small scraps of information she'd uncovered and the lattice of guesswork she'd framed over it all. She'd compiled it all in a digital file complete with detailed timeline, scans of all relevant documents, and videoed interviews.

Alice's last witnessed sighting was the evening of January 20th, at her performance in Tiergarten. There were unconfirmed rumors of a disturbance that night. Four Gestapo officers who'd been based in Berlin that month were also allegedly killed on the eastern front that same month. There was a single Gestapo order to _Detain the Siren (Alice Moser), alive, for questioning. _Otto's body turned up days later in his apartment, with signs of staging. Jilí described her lengthy trawl through prison records and execution documents, searching for any hint of Alice, and her interviews with the worst of Nazis.

Steve was startled by Jilí's recall - all of it seemed to be as clear in her mind as when she'd first learned it.

He was also struck by the deep undercurrent of _frustration _he sensed in her. He didn't know of anyone who'd looked so hard into _anything _for so long, and the thing Jilí had come up against most was just… nothing. Where Alice should be, somewhere, was a vacuum. No body, no word, no trace. Steve tried hard not to let his own frustration well up, but it was difficult. How could he resign himself to accept her death when instead of death, all he saw was _nothing_?

Somehow, the talk turned to before Alice's disappearance. Steve asked about how Jilí came to be alive, and she told him about her early-morning arrest in Vienna, the sickening journey east, and her years in a concentration camp. She showed him the faded numbers on her forearm. They talked about her husband Franz, and Steve gave Jilí a drawing he'd worked on in rest stops and motels on his cross-country journey; when Franz had been killed in 1939, Alice had asked Steve to draw a portrait of him based on a wedding photograph she'd sent him two years earlier. That portrait had been lost to the years, so Steve had drawn another one from memory of Franz and Jilí on their wedding day.

Jilí held that drawing for a long time, unmoving, her dark eyes fixed. She didn't cry, but when she looked up at him Steve saw a feeling so powerful in her eyes that it almost moved him to tears.

"I don't have any photographs of him," she said, her voice perfectly even. "Thank you."

Then their talk turned back to Alice. Jilí asked about their wedding day, so Steve told her all of it. It made her smile.

They talked about Vienna, and all that had changed since the war. Jilí told him about her children, then about Tom's.

"Alice - Alice Johnson," she clarified, since she had an Alice of her own, "ended up in S.H.I.E.L.D., you know. She's still working for them as far as I know. I last saw her for Thanksgiving last year."

Steve paused. "How… how is that, for her?"

"Classified," Jilí winked. She cocked her head. "Why, are you looking for something to do?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. S.H.I.E.L.D. was good to me when I first woke up, but then I found out about the Tesseract, and…"

Jilí's face darkened. "I was sorry to hear about that project. I understand why they did it, but…" she shook her head. "It was ill advised."

Steve said nothing.

Jilí steepled her fingers. "I can understand your caution, Steve. I was cautious too, back when Peggy asked me to join the fledgling agency she'd set up with two of her old war buddies. But in the end I trusted her, so I signed up. You have to decide if you trust the people you'd be working with."

Steve thought about it: Fury, Maria, Natasha. Trust was a strong word, but judging by their actions… they were good people. Plus, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been home to so many of the people he trusted: Peggy, Phillips, Stark… also Jilí and Alice's niece.

Jilí smiled. "You're thinking about it."

He frowned. "Maybe."

"For what it's worth… plenty of people might think you're an old war symbol they dug up out of the ice" - Steve almost flinched at her brutal honesty - "but I know more about you than you know. You could do good here. You're more than a soldier with a bit of speed and strength, and I think you know that."

* * *

Steve thought about it on the whole road trip back. He realized that while things were better these days, there were still so many threats out there. Jilí knew better than most people, after all - she'd been with S.H.I.E.L.D. since the beginning. These modern threats were complex, and dangerous beyond belief, and he didn't really know how he'd go about fixing them. But maybe Jilí was right. Maybe he could still be useful.

When he got back to New York he went to his S.H.I.E.L.D. appointed apartment. He stepped one foot in the door, looked around, and realized he was done with the place. He closed the door and turned around. Outside once more, he looked up and down the street before deciding: he was going for a walk.

* * *

He knew it'd be there. He'd read about it on the internet after all.

Brooklyn Bridge Park had changed. In his day it had been little more than a patch of grass and trees, but nowadays it had picnic tables and cultivated gardens and a playground. The view of the bridge was the same, though the skyline of Manhattan beyond it had grown taller and denser, like a forest growing thick with age. He smiled at the sight of the Empire State building.

He didn't have to walk long before he found it.

In the leafy shade of a grove of trees, a metal statue stood tall. The figure of the statue wore a dress which appeared to shift in a passing wind. Her chin was lifted, and a half-smile lifted her lips. She was made of bronze, but Steve could see more than that dark burnished shade: he saw pale hair, piercing green eyes, a white sweeping dress.

When he could drag his eyes away from the statue's face, he realized there was a plaque at the base:

_The Siren  
Alice Moser, who sang so beautifully that they never heard her chipping away at the foundation beneath their feet._

Steve almost couldn't make out the last line. He realized why when he reached up to his face to wipe away tears. _This is the statue of a war hero_, he realized. This was everything Alice deserved, and she never got to see it. He let out a rushing breath and had to set his hand on the base of the statue, to keep from falling to his knees.

* * *

That evening, Steve drew Alice for the first time since she'd forbidden him from doing so that day in France. He drew the scene at Brooklyn Bridge Park. But when he was done with the statue he drew two figures standing before it, looking up at it. He drew himself. And he drew Alice standing by his side.

When he was done he looked at the drawing for a long time. Then he picked up his phone and dialed.

"Captain," came Romanoff's smooth voice. "What's wrong?"

"Why does something have to be wrong?"

"Well the last time we spoke, New York was on fire…"

"Right." He'd gone radio silent, journeying into his past. "Sorry, I had some… stuff, to figure out."

"As did most of us. Did you figure it out?"

"I think so. Do you know if S.H.I.E.L.D. is hiring?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I call the first half of this chapter Avengers: Speed Run. I know some of you guys are going to be disappointed by the quick pace/lack of Alice, but trust me, my loves! This version of the MCU is going to be more of an AU than in the Wyvern.
> 
> I want to thank lea_sommerregen of AO3 once more for her unfailingly wonderful help with all my German translation mistakes. I couldn't ask for more wonderful readers!
> 
> ALSO the ever-wonderful thenumbertwentyseven not only made herself HARD COPY VERSIONS of The Wyvern, but she did a photoshoot with them - in Alice cosplay! I definitely cried when I saw it. Check it out on Tumblr [here.](https://princesszorldo.tumblr.com/post/624389625935527936/thenumbertwentyseven-showing-off-my-physical)


	54. Chapter Forty Five

Almost by accident, Alice remained Steve's secret.

He signed up with S.H.I.E.L.D. and his life became very busy all of a sudden: orientation, training, uniform fitting, mission briefs. The work was faster and more intense than the war had been: instead of long drawn out campaigns Fury dispatched him to clean up messes quickly and efficiently. At times the reasoning behind it all frustrated him (back in the war it had been easy: the Nazis needed to be stopped. Nothing was so simple these days), but the work kept him focused. And no one could argue he wasn't good at it.

He moved to D.C., and it was nice to be in a new place. He didn't find himself so disoriented by a familiar city so drastically changed. His colleagues and people who recognized him on the street began to ask him questions about the past, but not about the people he'd lost. They asked about the food, and the clothes, like he was a visitor from a foreign country.

He kept up some contact with the other Avengers, but they were all doing their own thing. Stark was busy with his tower and his suits, Banner was with Tony half the time, Thor was off-world. Barton came in and out of S.H.I.E.L.D., but seemed to work more independently. Steve got put on a team with Natasha early on, so they had regular contact. He didn't know if they were _friends_ exactly, but she treated him as normal as anyone could these days. She didn't pry, though. She knew that he grieved what he'd lost, without knowing the specifics.

He stopped with the psychologists after a while - they were great, but there was too much he couldn't say in the sessions. He kept up the strategies they'd given him, but silence just came easier.

So he didn't ever really tell anyone about his wife. It was still too recent for him, too much, too heartbreaking. He didn't want to share her. Maybe Peggy had been right: the world had already torn so much of Alice's story to shreds. He wanted to hold the Alice he'd known close to his chest.

That's not to say he _never _spoke about her. He visited Peggy pretty regularly, and Jilí had gotten his number somehow. They kept Alice alive in memory, retelling her stories and reminding Steve of things he'd already forgotten.

And then.

After a few weeks of trying to navigate his way around the Triskelion, he turned a corner, looked up, and saw Agent Alice Johnson. He recognised her instantly, from family photos Peggy and Jilí had shown him.

He and Agent Johnson both stopped in their tracks and stared.

Agent Johnson no longer worked in the field since she was nearing retirement, but ran the S.H.I.E.L.D. domestic counterterrorism division. Steve had heard her name bandied about, but he hadn't been ready to see her.

Agent Johnson was - biologically - about forty years older than Steve. Her hair glinted with streaks of salt and pepper, and intelligent dark eyes peered out a face lined with character. She wore a deep blue suit with the S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem on her breast. Steve absorbed her features. She didn't look like Alice, but he recognized something in her expression. She _did _look like Tom - she had his high cheekbones, wide brow, and the color of his skin.

Agent Johnson recovered first. She continued striding down the walkway toward him, and gave him a brisk nod. "Captain Rogers."

"A - Agent Johnson."

Her head tilted. "Would you like to catch up for coffee later?"

He almost let out a sigh of relief. He didn't know the protocol here but he _wanted _to talk to her, get to know her. And yet to any outside observer, there was no reason for the two of them to notice each other. "Yes, please," he nodded.

The corner of her lips quirked, and for a moment Steve was reminded of a young Tom Johnson, smirking on the other side of a diner counter. "6 PM, Burton's Cafe. See you then." And then she was gone.

Reeling in her sudden absence, Steve almost smiled. Because Alice Johnson might look like her father, but her attitude? She got that all from her aunt.

* * *

They met for coffee as promised. It was awkward at first, because Steve didn't know how much she knew. But then Alice Johnson wrapped her slim fingers around her mug, eyed him and said:

"So I suppose, legally, you're my uncle." Seeing the surprise in his eyes, she clarified: "Dad told me and my brothers about you and Alice before he died, but asked us to keep it private. Family, you know? I've… been looking forward to meeting you." She smiled.

And like that, they began talking about everything. About the life Tom Johnson had led after the war, and the legacy (first disguised as a curse) his children had grown up with. Steve learned about the Civil Rights Movement from a woman who'd fought for it, and about the modern workings of S.H.I.E.L.D. from an agent with decades of service. In return he told her all about the Tom he'd known.

Alice Johnson also had a gift for him. Halfway through their coffee, she reached into her messenger bag and pulled out what Steve first thought was an old scrap of greying fabric. But then he realised it was a canvas bag, the material patchy with age.

Alice set it on the table between them. "I think this belongs to you."

Steve reached out, confused, and flipped open the top of the bag. He peered in to see what looked like dozens of old, bound letters. The paper had become yellowed and fragile. Frowning, he peered a little closer and nearly flinched when he recognised his own handwriting.

Agent Johnson spoke in a low voice. "Alice - your Alice - gave this to my dad when she came back to Brooklyn during the war, and told him to look after it. She told him not to read the letters, but when he thought she'd become a Nazi he did read a few. He stopped when he realized what they were. Since then he's kept them safe. I think he would want you to have them."

Steve stared down at one of the fragile envelopes which bore Alice's old address in Vienna, and a crumbling postage stamp. "I didn't… I never thought…"

"Seems she didn't want to destroy them," Alice said evenly. "But she knew she couldn't keep them in Austria."

Steve sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. "My letters from Alice were in my old place in Brooklyn-"

"The Barnes family has them now," Alice finished for him, her eyes warm. "They ended up giving most of your stuff to museums - which I know they regret now - but Rebecca Barnes knew to keep those letters safe. Her son has them now. I can put you in contact with him."

"Please," Steve breathed. He reached into the faded canvas bag and pulled out a letter, carefully unfolding it. _Dear Alice. _The contents of the letter were mostly just a long-winded discussion of a John Steinbeck novel, with a few doodles in the margins. His eyes flicked up to the date. He'd have been eighteen when he wrote this. He carefully folded the letter again, feeling the old paper brush over the pads of his fingers. The letter smelled like time and old paper, like long-dried ink.

Alice hadn't written these words, but he could feel her presence in them. She opened these envelopes, she first read these words. All this paper and all those words, he'd dedicated to her.

He felt his vision go blurry. Alice Johnson politely didn't comment.

Steve rested his hands on the canvas bag, which his Alice had brought with her across an ocean to keep them safe. "Thank you."

* * *

S.H.I.E.L.D. felt more like home after that. Alice Johnson introduced him to her siblings, and he was able to speak (if only a little) about _his _Alice. Their aunt. It was strange, and precious.

Brian Proctor, Bucky's nephew, seemed almost relieved to hand over his shoebox stuffed with letters when Steve contacted him. They met at the Brooklyn docks, where the salty sea breeze blew in their faces.

"My mom told me not to read these," Brian said emphatically when he first arrived, then hastily added: "Which I _haven't_. But when I moved about ten years ago the box spilled and I got a glimpse of one of the letters, and I don't think I _could _read it if I tried. Looked like gibberish."

Steve smiled as he took the box. "Lots of them are in code," he said to Brian. He tried not to find similarities in his face to Bucky. "Thank you."

Steve took the two collections of letters home to D.C., and didn't read them for a long time. Each time he looked over at them, resting on his worktable, he felt a cold shiver run down his spine. He thought it might be fear.

But after a few missions with S.H.I.E.L.D. he decided to take it slow: a few letters a day, to remind himself of the way it had once been. It also took a while to decode the old letters, since he had to remember the ciphers they'd used. A few letters were missing, lost to forgetfulness and time, and others were disfigured by water leaks or by the paper simply crumbling away. But as Steve began unfolding fragile, lace-thin letters and absorbing their contents, he felt a decade younger and a hundred pounds lighter.

Her first letter made his heart skip painfully.

_And of course, I miss you and Bucky. Let me know how you're doing. I hope your mom's well. _

_I want you to know, I meant what I said before I left. _

_Please write soon. _

_Yours,  
Alice_.

* * *

As milestones passed - his birthday, Alice's, Thanksgiving, Christmas - he tentatively reached out to others. Bucky had one living sister and a whole boatload of nieces, nephews, and grand-nieces and grand-nephews. They welcomed him with typical Barnes warmth and charm, and understood when he could not bring himself to speak. The rest of the 107th Tactical Team - the Howling Commandos - had also left behind large broods of children who were more than eager to welcome his contact. He didn't meet all of them, but he started up a pretty healthy email correspondence with plenty of people.

Now that he'd set himself up in D.C. with a steady job and a house and an email address, people started to reach out to _him. _He'd been a subject of fascination since the Battle of New York, but S.H.I.E.L.D. mostly handled his media image. Steve still couldn't fail to notice the sheer volume of people who wanted something from him: politicians seeking endorsements or comments, hundreds upon hundreds of journalists with _thousands _of questions, companies and brands wanting to put his face on their products, and a mass of researchers and historians practically begging for information (the Smithsonian, it seemed, was putting together an exhibit about him. He ignored them).

He occasionally answered a few questions or requests for comment. Generally the advice from S.H.I.E.L.D. (and Tony, surprisingly) had been to keep his head down, and that worked for him. He still had so much to learn about this new world. So he emailed a few historians with quick answers or clarifications, and copied and pasted S.H.I.E.L.D.'s drafted "thanks, but no thanks" response to the more insistent companies and politicians.

One request did stand out to him, though. The email was titled: _The Siren: Thesis Research Background Knowledge. _The email itself was polite, almost apologetic in its request, and before Steve knew what he was doing he'd emailed the student researcher back to agree to meet for a brief discussion over coffee.

* * *

_I miss you already, Alice. We'll just have to become the best set of pen-pals that ever existed._

_I meant what I said, too._

_Yours,  
Steve_

* * *

Steve arrived at the cafe first. He'd picked the same one he and Alice Johnson had met at, because it had sunny outdoor seating and the coffee came with crumbly biscotti that reminded him of Italy.

He spotted the sender of the email as she wound her way through the tables toward him. She was in her mid twenties, with one of those weird modern haircuts where the top of her hair was long but the base and sides of her skull were shaved. She had a nose ring and a satchel bag with a sticker of a rainbow flag on it. Natasha had taught him about those flags. When she reached the table, Steve smiled and stood.

"Holy moly," the woman said, flustered, "I can't believe I'm late, I'm so sorry, traffic in this city is-"

"It's okay," Steve reassured. "I can't believe I'm on time." He stuck out his hand. "Nice to meet you."

She gave him a slightly manic smile as she shook his hand. "I'm Amaya." Steve decided not to point out that he already knew that from her email. He was still learning how all this digital communication stuff worked. "Thank you for agreeing to meet."

They sat down, and Amaya looked somehow more uncomfortable than Steve felt. A few excruciating seconds of silence passed.

Steve cleared his throat. "Um, so… your email-"

"Right!" Amaya exclaimed. "I'm really sorry I bothered you with it, I've just been going nuts with my Masters research and I figured 'hey, who would know the most about the SSR's work in the war', but I really… it was a dumb thing to do, you're not a reference book-"

"It's really okay," he reassured again. "I get plenty of emails about much weirder stuff. And I guess… it kind of surprised me that you weren't asking about _me._" In fact, out of hundreds and hundreds of emails from strangers, it had been one of the only ones not about him.

Amaya blinked. "I… I guess that didn't occur to me. My thesis is about… the Siren…" her voice trailed off. "Sorry?"

"It's okay," he said yet again, fighting off a smile. But he'd come into this meeting with a healthy dose of suspicion (and more than enough self-doubt for agreeing to it), so he carefully arranged his features. "So… tell me about your thesis?"

Amaya blinked once more. And then she began _gushing. _She told him all about Alice Moser, the Siren. About how she'd arrived onto the scene in Vienna in the midst of a Nazi takeover, and about how she'd stepped up to push back against the regime. She told him about the Siren's contribution to the war effort (some of which even he hadn't known) and about her compassion and her strength. Amaya was in the middle of a long description of her study of the Siren's character when Steve finally spoke.

"You… admire her," he realized.

"Of course I do!" Amaya exclaimed. "Alice Moser showed the world what women - hell, what anyone - can do if they give enough of a shit." Her eyes flew wide open. "Oh god, I just swore in front of Captain America."

Steve grinned. "You sure as shit did."

* * *

So Steve answered her questions. It was all very official: she had him sign a consent form from her university, and then she set up a recording app on her phone. Then they got started.

It was nice, because she wasn't asking about him. She'd reached out because he was her best resource for being _alive _during the 30s and 40s, and in the SSR's heyday. It became clear early on that she didn't suspect that Steve had ever met Alice. She knew they'd both worked for the SSR, and once or twice while he described a mission he'd been on she'd say something like "you know, the Siren collected intelligence which would have directly helped in planning that mission". He smiled, raised his eyebrows as if pleasantly surprised, and kept talking.

He told her about the people he'd known in the SSR, and how the organisation had worked. He told her about his training at Camp Lehigh, and what it had been like in occupied Europe.

Amaya only asked him a couple of times about his actual experience of the Siren: if he'd ever heard her sing ("Yes, I believe I did.") and what he'd thought when he found out she'd been a double agent - though she assumed that he'd found out when he woke up in 2011 ("It was a pretty big surprise."). The conversation felt like the other conversations he'd had with other people asking about the past, but slightly different; because in a way, it felt like this was for Alice.

When he shook hands with Amaya and they parted ways, he walked off with his hands in his pockets. He couldn't say for certain why he'd decided to answer her questions. But he didn't regret it.

* * *

_Dearest James Buchanan,_

_Thank you for letting me know about Steve, he's seemed down in his letters but you know he's the last to admit when he's not doing well. I'm glad he's not sick. Keep on trying to cheer him up - try taking him to a gallery, you know he always likes that._

… _It feels strange writing letters to you both. I realized yesterday that I've never been farther than a few blocks from you both for five years now, and now I'm thousands of miles away._

… _Cordially,  
Alice_

* * *

He met the veteran named Sam a month later. It was nice; Sam seemed to have that rare quality of treating Steve like a regular human being while also not avoiding certain topics like the plague.

"Must've freaked you out, coming home after the whole defrosting thing."

"It takes some getting used to."

Steve found himself smiling at the easy, intuitive manner Sam had as they talked about life after service.

"You must miss the good old days, huh?" Sam asked with a wry smile.

For a moment, that question took Steve aback. Because the instinctive answer was _yes_, but he didn't really mean the war: he meant summer afternoons in Brooklyn, sneaking into speakeasies, a flash of a smile in soft light.

He half-shrugged, and his focus settled on the park around him. "Well, things aren't so bad," he said with a small smile. "Food's a lot better, we used to boil everything" - he remembered he and Bucky laughing so hard they almost cried after trying the shriveled, flavorless boiled chicken they'd made in their first shared cooking experiment when they were seventeen. Seasoning had been a pleasant surprise on arriving in the future. "No polio is good… internet - so helpful. Been reading that a lot, trying to catch up." He'd signed up to all the message boards about the Siren's disappearance, in case anything new came up, in amongst all his other internet adventures.

Sam helped add to his list of things to experience in the future with an interesting-sounding album.

Then Nat showed up, and they headed off to work.

* * *

_Dear Steve,_

… _I think I've not been really myself since I came here. I've never struggled with something like this before. There's just so many people around me and so little time to myself, I don't know who I am here. But even if I'm right, and this is wrong… what can I do about it? I'm a seventeen year old girl relying on the kindness of her uncle to make her way in the world. Who would listen to me?_

_Please tell me I'm not going crazy._

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

Working with Natasha was nice - most of the time. She was one of the most skilled fighters he'd ever seen (himself included), wickedly smart, and even if he wasn't sure if they were _friends _they were definitely friendly. At some point she'd also gotten it into her head to try setting him up.

It was harmless for the most part - she'd throw out names of people he barely knew (usually S.H.I.E.L.D. employees) and a date idea, and he'd politely decline. She seemed to view it as a friendly challenge. _Gotta put yourself out there, Rogers_, she'd tell him. It reminded him of Bucky, which was nice.

Steve knew Natasha had a point, even if she didn't necessarily realise it. Because for all intents and purposes these days, he was a widower. A strange thought.

But he couldn't bring himself to look for something - someone - new. It had only been two years since he woke up in this new world (two years since he'd lost Alice), and it had all gone by so fast. He didn't know how _not _to still be in love with her, and that didn't seem fair to any new potential partner. He got lonely, sure, but of all the hardships he'd suffered in his life loneliness was almost bearable. Maybe it would've been easier if he had answers, but Alice remained undead, unburied, a painful question mark lodged deep in his chest.

So he bore Natasha's attempts at matchmaking with good humor, even when she did it 32,000 feet above the Indian Ocean in a Quinjet right before a very important mission. That was only part of the reason why he jumped out of the jet without a parachute.

* * *

After the shitshow of a mission, and after his unexpected conversation with Fury underneath the Triskelion, Steve changed out of his uniform and left S.H.I.E.L.D. with a mind whirling with thoughts. _Project Insight_: a fleet of helicarriers eyeballing every person on earth, ready to take them out at a moment's notice. Fury had been obviously frustrated at Steve for dragging his feet.

In a lot of ways, Fury reminded Steve of Alice. Maybe it was a spy thing. _Grandad loved people_, Fury had said. _But he didn't trust 'em very much. _

On his way through the lobby, Steve glanced to his left as he passed the S.H.I.E.L.D. Wall of Valor and his eyes snagged on Alice and Bucky's plaques.

The first time he'd seen the Wall, he'd had to rush to the bathroom to keep the nearby S.H.I.E.L.D. employees from seeing his tears. Back then they'd still been figuring out what to do with his plaque. These days there was a blank spot where his name used to be. He was sure they'd put it back one day.

But as he walked past that morning his gaze lighted on Alice and Bucky's names and he thought: _what would you do, here?_

* * *

_Alice,_

_You are not going crazy._

… _I wouldn't trust anyone who tells you to cheer for them while they kick the defenseless._

… _I gotta admit I was surprised to read that you rely on me to know what's right - all this time I've been relying on you. I think you see things clearer than me sometimes. I let my anger get in my way and I inevitably end up in a fight, but you __see_ _and __think_ _and figure out what to do. Trust yourself, Alice. Trust your instincts._

_Thinking of you,  
Steve_

* * *

Visiting the Smithsonian exhibit was strange. They'd hounded Steve for information while they'd been setting it up, and had tried to get him there on the day it opened, but he hadn't been interested. But something about today had him thinking about the exhibition, and before he knew it he'd headed there on his bike. Maybe it was what Fury had said: _You know, I read those SSR files. Greatest generation? You guys did some nasty stuff. _Steve remembered the compromises they had made, the decisions and actions that still haunted him.

So he found himself strolling through a chronology of his old life: Brooklyn, Project Rebirth, the war. And _boy_, did they have a lot of his old stuff. They had photographs of his mom and dad, a bunch of his old sketches, and even his school report. Now the whole world could see that he got a D in Physical Education. _Great. _

As he strolled through it all, his shoulders hunched and his cap pulled low, he saw all the places Alice _should _be. Hell, there was even a drawing of her in amongst a display of all his childhood sketches: she was a kid in the sketch, granted, but it almost made him smile that no one had put it all together yet. _Don't you know all old people know each other?_

Though, he supposed, she had been in Brooklyn for six years compared to the twenty five that he'd lived there. The world wasn't to know that they'd written each other letters every month from the day she left up until 1943. Through design, distance, and chance, history had missed how Alice fit into Steve's story.

It surprised Steve how busy the exhibit was, especially for a weekday. He felt bemused by it all, but walking through the exhibit he found himself peppered with small traumas: the photo of his mom stopped him in his tracks for a moment, as did a childhood photo of him and Bucky, taken at the Barnes's apartment. The reminders of HYDRA were a bitter sting, and seeing the photos and memoirs of his old team made his chest ache.

Then there was Bucky's memorial. Steve read with his hands in his pockets and his heart beating painfully. He wondered at how hard a historian's job must be: they had to squeeze a whole life into a few paragraphs. He definitely couldn't have done that for Bucky. The memorial was nice, but it felt… distant. Like reading about a stranger. The old film reels playing beneath the memorial hit a lot closer to home.

Watching Bucky grin in black and white, laughing silently on film, Steve let out a breath. _What would you do, if it were you here instead of me? _When it came to a fight, Bucky had always waited - not out of hesitation (or cunning, like Alice), but to see what Steve was going to do. Then he'd either step in to stop him or dive right into the fight beside him. Steve could almost picture it, as if Bucky were standing beside him now. Bucky would look at him with that wry expression and say _You're liable to do something stupid here, Steve. And you're going to drag me right into it as well, aren't you?_

Steve let out a sigh, and kept walking.

* * *

  
After the museum, he went to visit Peggy. One of the perks of living in D.C. full time was being able to visit her, which he did about once a month usually. She'd gone downhill since he first arrived in the future; more prone to sickness, more forgetful. She rested in bed most of the day. She was still just as graceful and thoughtful as ever, which somehow made it all worse because Steve still saw that same sharp-eyed SSR agent he'd known at Camp Lehigh.

She seemed pretty good today though. So he told her everything he could about what he'd seen and heard at S.H.I.E.L.D., confidentiality be damned.

"I often wonder at what Howard, Phillips and I created," she said wearily, once he'd finished speaking. "After Howard died, I think I… I think I realized I had to pass it all on to someone younger. Perhaps that was selfish of me." Her gaze turned to her bedside table. "I wanted time… with my family."

Steve followed her gaze to the table, where the framed photographs of her children rested, and he smiled. "You should be proud of yourself, Peggy."

She hummed thoughtfully. "I have lived a life," she then turned her eyes on him. "My only regret is that you and Alice didn't get to live yours."

He held her gaze for a moment longer before he couldn't bear the earnestness, and he glanced down.

"What is it?" she asked softly.

His brow furrowed. Why had he come? What was he asking? "For as long as I can remember, I just wanted to do what was right." He let his gaze drift across the room. "I guess I'm not quite sure what that is anymore. And I thought I could throw myself back in, and follow orders. Serve." He looked up and met Peggy's eyes with a small, sad smile. "It's just not the same."

She laughed softly. "You're always so dramatic." That made him smile. "Look. You saved the _world_. We rather… mucked it up."

"You didn't," he said adamantly. "Knowing that you helped found S.H.I.E.L.D. is half the reason I stay." He had to remind himself of it sometimes when he fell into self-doubt after missions: S.H.I.E.L.D. was Peggy's, and Howard's, and Colonel Phillips'. It had been home to Jilí and Alice's niece (though Alice Johnson retired last year). It had brought the Avengers together. S.H.I.E.L.D. had to be doing _something _right.

And yet he didn't know who to trust, where to turn.

He glanced away again, brow furrowed. His hand flexed unconsciously on his knee. "What do you think Alice would say?"

Saying the words aloud made his heart pound: because that's what he'd been searching for, ever since leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. this morning. He'd thought of the letters he'd been reading through this past year, searching for answers.

Peggy smiled at him. "Oh, Steve. Alice was my friend, truly, but you knew her far better than I. You understood her in a way that many people didn't. What do _you _think she'd say? If it were her dealing with all this, instead of you?"

Steve bowed his head over his clasped hands, thinking. "She'd say… she'd say that this was all a great idea." He looked up to see Peggy frowning slightly at him. He sighed wryly. "She'd smile, and nod, and agree with everything they said." He looked at his hands again. "Then she'd figure out how to bring it all crashing down to the ground."

Peggy laughed, wheezing. "You're right. That's precisely what she'd do." She reached out then, taking Steve's hand. Her eyes went soft. "Hey. The world has changed, and none of us can go back." She held his gaze, making sure he was listening. "All we can do is our best. And sometimes the best that we can do is t-to start over-" she broke off coughing, and Steve turned away to get her a glass of water.

When she next set eyes on him, he saw the shift in her expression and his stomach dropped.

"Steve?"

"Yeah?" he murmured.

Her expression crumbled and tears filled her eyes. "You're… you're _alive_." Even though he felt like his heart was bruising, Steve forced a smile onto his face. "You came back!"

"Yeah, Peggy," he nodded, squeezing her hand.

Her lip quivered. "It's been so long." Her eyes shifted from his face then, searching the room, and Steve knew what was coming next. He tried to prepare himself. "Is… is Alice back too?"

He'd asked the nurses what to say to those kinds of questions, and it seemed there wasn't a right answer. Some said that if Peggy realized he was lying - which she was still very good at - she'd just get angry, but that it also wasn't kind to keep repeating traumas when she'd just forget them and have to relive them a moment later. They called it _therapeutic fibbing._ And yet… He drew in a breath, steeling himself.

"No, he said honestly. "It's just me, Peg."

The tears welling in her eyes spilled down her wrinkled cheeks, jerking at his heart. Her lip trembled again. "I'm so… so sorry, Steve," she breathed.

He took both her hands in his. "It ain't your fault, Peggy. It ain't your fault."

* * *

_Dear Steve,_

… _I'm sorry that I wasn't able to come to the funeral._

_I know that nothing anyone says or does can make you feel better. It might get worse with time, rather than better, and any words of comfort are always cliched. _

_So I'll repeat another cliche now: I'm here for you, Steve._

_Always yours,  
Alice_

* * *

Steve didn't go straight home after that. He wasn't sure why, but he found himself heading for the VA, which he'd driven past plenty of times but never been inside. He parked, headed in, and found a room full of people sitting on fold-out chairs, with Sam the veteran standing before them.

_Some stuff you leave there. Other stuff you bring back. It's our job to figure out how to carry it._

Steve had seen the S.H.I.E.L.D. psychologists, but he wasn't used to this kind of group therapy. He hovered in the doorway, watching and listening, his heart heavy.

When the session ended and the chairs were folded and put away, Steve found Sam. Sam told him about the wingman he'd lost. With that way he had, though, Sam lightened the mood once more with an easy joke and a smile.

"What, are you thinking about getting out?" he asked Steve, his eyebrows raised.

"No," Steve said instinctively. _But… _he cocked his head. "I don't know." He shook his head at himself. "To be honest, I don't know what I would do with myself if I did."

And there it was: if it wasn't for S.H.I.E.L.D., he'd be just as aimless and lonely as when he first woke up in the future.

Sam had a smile on his face though. "Ultimate fighting?" he suggested, making Steve laugh. "Just a great idea off the top of my head." His voice dropped. "Seriously, you could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?"

Steve thought about it. It had been people, before. They were gone, but there were people around these days who made him happy too. But what did he enjoy doing?

He smiled, and met Sam's eyes. "I don't know."

* * *

Finally he went home (and awkwardly offered to go for coffee with his neighbour - _dammit_, Nat was getting to him).

Then he thought there was an intruder, who turned out to be a bloody and bruised Fury, and then - _SHIELD COMPROMISED._

It all went downhill after that.

* * *

Steve forgot about everything else after that. Nick died before his eyes on a hospital table, and Steve knew he had a mission. It unfolded quickly: The USB stick, his tense meeting with Pierce, his escape from S.H.I.E.L.D., confronting Natasha at the hospital, staying undercover at the shopping mall. The kiss on the escalator was kind of a surprise, but he had to admit it worked.

Natasha drew his mind off the mission a little, in the car on the way to the USB's algorithm source in Jersey.

"Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" Natasha asked wryly.

He knew exactly where. Dernier had taught him how. "Nazi Germany," he told her. "And we're borrowing. Take your feet off the dash."

She did, smiling. "Alright, I have a question for you - which you do not have to answer." Her smile grew. "I feel like if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?"

"What?" he urged.

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?" she asked with a grin.

Steve fought the urge to grind his jaw. "That bad, huh?"

"I didn't say that," she protested.

"Well it kind of sounds like that's what you're saying." His palms were sweating on the steering wheel, which surprised him. But he supposed this was the closest he'd gotten to talking about Alice with Natasha.

"No, I didn't," Natasha reassured him. "I just wondered how much practice you've had."

"You don't need _practice-_"

"Everybody needs practice," she smiled.

"It was not my first kiss since 1945!" he finally burst out, because he was thinking about exactly how much practice he'd had, and with who, and it was making him sad. "I'm 95, I'm not dead."

Natasha could probably sense the lie, but she didn't call him out on it. "Nobody special, though?" she asked.

He huffed a laugh. _Yes. _"Believe it or not, it's kinda hard to find someone with shared life experience."

"Well that's alright, you just make something up."

Now _that _reminded him of Alice. "What, like you?" he asked, glancing over at Natasha.

"I don't know, the truth is a matter of circumstance," she said. "It's not all things to all people, all the time." Natasha looked out at the road ahead, her eyes distant, before looking back at him. "Neither am I."

"That's a tough way to live," he murmured. He knew exactly how tough it was; he'd seen the toll it had taken on Alice in the war.

"It's a good way not to die, though."

Steve had to look away and focus on the road, because his throat had closed up. After a moment, he spoke again. "Y'know, it's kinda hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is."

"Yeah," Natasha acknowledged, utterly serious now. Her green eyes rested on him. "Who do you want me to be?"

And for a flicker of a moment he thought he saw her: _Natasha_, the Natasha hidden behind the wry smiling facade. She wasn't like Alice - she didn't have steel walls. Her barriers were fluid like smoke. Just when you thought you'd seen past them, the fog obscured your vision once more.

"How about a friend?" he said.

She laughed. "Well there's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers."

He met her eyes for a moment longer, almost smiling, then looked back out to the road.

* * *

_Dear Steve,_

_So. I wrote a song. _

… _I want to explain what this song means to me. It means my mom and Matthias, it means the distant memories of my father, it means my brother. It means Bucky. It means you. This song is about cherishing the words I had with you all, the words I hold in my memory like buried gems. It means the words I hold back every day, even when I want to scream them. It means the words I write to you every week, and the ones I get in return. This song means home._

…

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

Camp Lehigh echoed with old ghosts.

As they made their way into the S.H.I.E.L.D. base, Steve caught a glimpse of an early Wall of Valor. This one still had _his _name on it, with Alice's beside him. He looked away. Then they passed portraits of Howard, Phillips and Peggy, which made his heart pound. As if that wasn't enough, down another corridor they passed yet another framed photograph. Steve's gaze skimmed over it before flicking back, and his heart _dropped._

This wasn't an official photograph taken in a S.H.I.E.L.D. photography studio. This was taken from an old publicity photo, he was pretty sure. The portrait wasn't labelled, but Steve knew the face instantly. Of course he did. It was the face that had looked back at him with tearful eyes when he said _I do._

Alice smiled out of the frame, her eyes knowing and almost mischievous. It was a head-and-shoulders portrait, and he could just see the top of her iconic white dress. The breath rushed out of his chest as if he'd been punched.

He turned away, resolved to focus on the mission, but he knew Natasha must have noticed something of his reaction.

He couldn't let himself be distracted now. Alice might have had a totally different approach to this whole mess - she wouldn't have argued with Fury and Pearce, she'd have ingratiated herself at the highest level and only struck at the right moment. But Steve only knew how to face problems head on.

He found the secret elevator, and they made their way down. _Now what?_

* * *

It was all too much to process. Zola, HYDRA, Stark's parents, Project Insight… S.H.I.E.L.D. firing on the base.

He got Natasha out. And then fled to the only place he could think to go.

* * *

Sam opened his back door with a look of deep concern on his face. But all he said, after flicking his concerned gaze over them both, was: "Hey, man."

"I'm sorry about this," Steve said. "We need a place to lay low."

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us," Natasha added helpfully.

Sam glanced between them. "Not everyone."

And then he beckoned them inside.

* * *

They put together a plan. Sam was a big help. Even with the knowledge of HYDRA looming over him once more, and the betrayal of so many people he'd trusted, Steve felt good.

He was even able to be honest with Natasha when she tried to set him up yet again after she kicked Sitwell off the roof ("Yeah, I'm not ready for that").

But then came the attack on the freeway.

And before he had time to process any of it really, he found himself standing, gasping for breath, staring at the face of his best friend and trying to understand. The face of the boy who'd gotten beat up by Billy Russel by his side, the teenager who'd taken him to Coney Island after Alice left for Vienna, the man who'd followed him into a war and saved his life countless times.

"_Bucky_?"

The man wearing Bucky's face stared blankly. "Who the hell is Bucky?"

* * *

In the van the STRIKE team had shoved them into, Steve stared down at his bound hands.

"It was him," he murmured. "He looked right at me. He didn't even know me."

"How is that even possible?" Sam protested. "It was like seventy years ago."

"Zola," Steve replied. "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him." Bucky had never told him the whole story. Steve should've… he should've pushed more, showed Bucky that he could trust him. "Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall."

His stomach twisted. _I left him._ "They must've found him and-"

"None of that's your fault, Steve," Natasha said, her words slightly slurred.

Steve looked away. "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."

* * *

In an abandoned bank in central D.C., an asset without a name saw flashes of images behind his eyes. A man in a blue uniform reaching out for him with wide and panicked eyes. A woman with pale hair and a knowing smile, waving at him. A sickening, lurching fall through ice and rock. A scarlet streak in the snow.

"The man on the bridge… I knew him."

And it was all wiped away.

* * *

Steve didn't know if it was what Zola had shown him at Camp Lehigh, or seeing Bucky on that street, but when they started making plans at the hidden S.H.I.E.L.D. facility with Fury (not dead) and Hill, he knew what had to be done.

"We're not salvaging anything," he told Fury. "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down _S.H.I.E.L.D._" He hadn't fully realized it until he said it aloud.

Fury argued, even tried to bring Bucky into it, but after months of doubt Steve was finally sure about what he was meant to do. "S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA… it all goes," he said with finality.

One by one, the others agreed.

"Well," Fury finally sighed. He leaned back in his chair. "Looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain."

* * *

_  
Dear Alice,_

… _I think I'm in the same boat as you - if this were our old middle school classroom we'd know what to do. You'd know how to push and pull in just the right way to make sure the right thing is done. But you're right - this is about entire countries now. _

… _You asked what I'd do, but I dunno if what I'd do is the right move here. You know me, I'd probably punch someone in the face and then get myself beaten up. I'm really not advocating that here though - please don't punch anyone in the face. Stay safe._

* * *

Steve stepped away from the battle plans for a moment. He took himself up to the top of the dam and looked down at the river without really seeing it, his hands in his pockets and his mind in another era.

Out of all his memories, his mind turned to the day of his mom's funeral. Steve had only just lost Alice to Vienna earlier that year, and then his mom had gone too. Bucky had written to Alice to give her the news, so Steve didn't have to put it in writing.

After the funeral Bucky had followed him home, offered him a place to live.

_Thank you, Bucky. But I can get by on my own._

_The thing is, you don't have to. I'm with you 'til the end of the line, pal. _

"He's going to be there, you know." Sam's voice intruded on Steve's thoughts.

Steve's brow lowered. "I know."

"Look, whoever he used to be, the guy he is now… I don't think he's the kind you save." Sam's voice was low, empathetic. "He's the kind you stop."

Steve drew in a breath. He understood Sam's fear - he'd only known that cold-eyed assassin on the freeway. But Steve knew _Bucky. _"I don't know if I can do that."

"Well he might not give you a choice," Sam said. "He doesn't know you."

Steve looked up, suddenly decided. Whatever had been done to Bucky, whatever he'd forgotten, Steve _knew _his friend. He met Sam's eyes. "He will."

* * *

When Steve took his uniform back from the Smithsonian, he didn't really consider it _stealing. _It was just one more piece of history missing from the exhibit.

And when he wore it into battle later that day, it felt _right. _This was the uniform Bucky had fought beside. This was the uniform Steve had gotten married in. The uniform he'd worn when he beat HYDRA the last time. Win or lose (and god, they couldn't afford to lose), Steve knew there was no other uniform he would rather be wearing.

So with the memory of his wife and his best friend held tight to him, Steve marched toward the Triskelion.

* * *

_Dear Steve,_

… _If this is what I can do, I'll do it._

* * *

"People are going to die, Buck."

Bucky stared back at him across the helicarrier bridge, a stranger behind a familiar face.

"I can't let that happen."

There was nothing but ice in those eyes. Bucky was utterly still, but Steve could sense the violence coiled tight inside him, waiting to be unleashed.

_Recognize me_, he wanted to shout. _Remember. Remember how we first met, when you dove into that back alley scrap to save me. Remember how we used to spend our summers with Alice, scrounging money for ice cream. Remember all our jokes, and how we helped each other. Remember how relieved we both were when I found you in that HYDRA base, and how you put your hand on my shoulder when you reassured me that Alice was going to be okay, even though you were wrong. Remember that last Christmas. Alice would know what to say to you, Buck - she'd be able to bring you back. I don't know how._

He didn't say any of that, though. He looked into his friend's empty eyes and begged: "Please don't make me do this."

Bucky's only response was to tilt his head forward slightly, eyes fixed, like a wolf sizing up his prey.

Steve felt steel wrap around his gut, and he clenched his jaw.

And he hurled his shield at his best friend.

* * *

They'd won. They'd replaced all three targeting blades and now the helicarriers were blasting each other out of the sky.

Steve slumped on the bottom of a limping helicarrier, aching from bullet wounds and bruises and everything he'd had to do to get that targeting blade in the helicarrier's array. He looked up, eye to eye with the unhinged, wild-looking Bucky. "You know me."

Bucky staggered to his feet, injured from the fight and from being half crushed by the fallen pylon. "No I _don't_!" He swung at Steve.

Steve stumbled back to avoid the blow, steadied himself, then rose again. "Bucky." Bucky looked up, and there was more than ice behind his eyes now. He looked afraid. "You've known me your whole life."

Bucky took two breaths, his eyes darting, and then threw a savage backhand that took Steve by surprise - he fell back again. An explosion rocked the helicarrier, making the glass beneath Steve shudder.

Steve got his feet under him. "Your name is James Buchanan Barnes," he persisted.

"_Shut up_!"

Steve barely held up his shield against the next punch, and it knocked him off his feet again. Bucky fell to his knees.

Steve got up again. This time he thought to tug off his cowl, and when he and Bucky met eyes again he let out a long, shuddering breath. Sparks and shattered glass flew through the air around them as the helicarrier groaned in the sky.

_If you could only see us now, Alice._

"I'm not going to fight you," Steve realized. He let go of his shield and it fell through the open hole in the floor, spinning down toward the Potomac. Steve straightened his shoulders and looked Bucky in the eyes. "You're my friend."

Bucky eyed him for a moment, breathing hard, before aggression lit up his whole face once more and he charged forward. Steve didn't stop him. Bucky slammed into his middle and smashed him to the ground.

"You're my mission," Bucky growled, and then with a flash of metal, starbursts of pain erupted in Steve's skull. He felt his skin split and bleed, felt his mind go numb with the pain.

Bucky roared as he rained blows down on Steve. "_You're - my - mission_!" came the shouts, punctuating each blow.

Bucky raised his arm once more, faltering, eyes terrified, and Steve peered out of one swollen eye to look him in the face. His whole body ached, and getting any coherent thought to formulate in his mind felt like lifting a helicarrier over his head.

"Then finish it," Steve groaned. "'Cause I'm with you t-to the end of the line."

Bucky's eyes went wide and white with horror, his fist still raised. Steve just stared back at him. And when Bucky's eyes gleamed and his fist began to slowly lower, through the pain ricocheting in his body Steve felt a burst of hope and helplessness.

Then the floor beneath him gave way and there was nothing but wind, and sickening weightlessness.

Then the cold.

* * *

On the bank of the Potomac, the asset watched his target cough up river water. His eyes were closed. Blood seeped into the red, white, and blue fabric of his uniform. _Alive._

And the asset didn't understand anything, least of all his own mind, but he knew that this was right.

He took a stumbling step backwards, finally taking in the carnage of the shattered Triskelion and the husks of helicarriers protruding from the river.

The asset turned away.

And began walking.

* * *

_I'm really glad you're safe. Keep it that way._

_Yours,  
Steve._

* * *

Steve didn't talk much once he woke up in hospital. No one was really left to ask him any questions, so for the most part he got to sit with his thoughts. Sam was there, but he seemed to understand Steve's need for silence. Doctors and nurses drifted in and out, raising their eyebrows at the way his wounds seemed to knit themselves up overnight, but they didn't ask him many questions either.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was gone. HYDRA too, for the most part, though Steve was sure a few rats had escaped the sinking ship. The world was in turmoil and Steve - Steve felt numb.

Bucky had vanished. Steve hoped - well, he hoped a lot of things. He also feared: _I thought Bucky and Alice were long dead. Just like the world thought I was long dead. But Bucky spent decades in suffering and violence. Who am I to say what's real, any more?_

Like when he first woke up in the future, he tried to drown his mind in sleep. And just like back then, he woke up gasping at nightmares.

The day after Steve first woke, Natasha slipped into his hospital room. She looked a little banged up too, but better than he was doing. She shot him one of those small, enigmatic smiles, and then sank into the chair on the left side of his hospital bed. Sam nodded in greeting.

For a long time they sat in silence. Sam's soul playlist crooned out of his phone speakers. Steve's half eaten lunch still remained on the side table. There wasn't anything left to say about what they'd done.

Then:

"You know, I'm married."

It just slipped out like he was an old man on his deathbed, leaking secrets. The present tense almost made him smile - maybe this was why he couldn't figure out how to move on. He was _still married._

"What? When? Who?" Sam was suddenly wide eyed and incredulous, upright in his chair.

Natasha got smoothly back to her feet and closed the blinds, shutting out the outside world. She didn't even know what the secret was, and she was protecting it. It made him almost smile again - almost.

Natasha sat back down and set her hands on her knees. Sam was still talking, questions and exclamations tripping off his tongue. If Steve squinted, he could picture it like it used to be: Bucky talking his ear off, and Alice sitting back with that calm, silent façade. He shook the image away.

"Her name was Alice," he murmured. It felt like he hadn't spoken her name in years.

Sam shut his mouth. Frowned. He'd been theorizing wildly: Peggy, a USO showgirl, some modern mystery woman, hell, even Bucky. But now he just frowned.

Natasha drew in a slow breath. "Alice Moser."

Sam's mouth dropped. "What - the _Siren_?"

Steve's eyes rolled up to the ceiling. That name still felt strange to him. "Yeah."

"You knew _the Siren_? You _married her_?"

"We grew up together." Steve's tongue felt scratchy in his mouth. "Her family lived three blocks away from mine."

"I thought she was German?"

"Austrian," Steve interjected.

"You _married her_?" Sam repeated, his voice pitched higher.

Steve's eyes traveled back down from the ceiling, wet, and to his surprise Natasha reached out and took his hand, rustling the hospital blankets. He glanced down at her hand on his. "Alice's family died. She went back to Austria, and I didn't see her again until in the middle of the war. First when she came back to Brooklyn, and next in the middle of Nazi occupied Italy."

"She was a spy," Natasha said evenly.

Steve nodded. "That's how I found out."

Sam slumped back in his chair. "_Shit._" Steve glanced over, eyebrows raised, and Sam looked up. "Sorry, sorry. I just… I thought I knew what happened back then, y'know? Guess I - guess we were all wrong."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Steve said wryly.

"She died?" Sam asked. "I'm so sorry, man."

"MIA," Natasha corrected. Steve looked over at her, and she shrugged slightly. "Peggy Carter took an interest in her. She was one of the greatest spies of her generation. I've studied her before." Steve knew she'd been lying when she pretended to not recognise Peggy and Alice's photographs back in the S.H.I.E.L.D. base. Something moved in the undercurrent of Natasha's eyes. "She was beautiful."

"That she was," Steve said softly. "Smart, too. Way too smart for me. Way too smart for them, too."

"When'd you get married?" Sam asked.

"A few months before she disappeared. Just the two of us and a pastor in a tiny little church in France. Don't even know if it was legal. She went back to Berlin the next day and I went back to the front."

"That must have been difficult," Sam said, in the same tone he'd used back at the VA. Therapist mode.

Steve nodded slightly and let his gaze drift away.

"Why now?" Natasha asked. He glanced back, meeting her eyes. "Why tell us now?"

He shrugged. "Secrets coming out all over the place." Natasha stayed silent, watching him. "I've been keeping this secret a long time. Alice has been my secret ever since I became Captain America. I figure… I figure this is the sort of secret you share with friends."

Natasha smiled at that; a warm, genuine smile. Sam's face did something complicated which seemed to settle on empathy.

_And Bucky's back, _Steve thought, but didn't say. He let his eyes drift shut. _Bucky's back, and he doesn't remember either of us._

* * *

_Yours,  
Alice_

_PS: I'm sorry I haven't asked after you for a while. I've been… heartsore. And scared. But please let me know how everyone back home is doing. I think it might help to remind me that the whole world hasn't gone crazy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus ends CA:TWS! I know, I know, 'where's Alice?' but trust me, lovelies ;) It's all part of the plan.
> 
> This time next week I'll be writing to you from my new home in the UK! Clearly moving internationally in the middle of a pandemic is the best idea. Until then - have a great week!


	55. Chapter Forty Six

After the thirtieth lead that turned out to be nothing, Steve began to fully appreciate how Jilí must have felt all those fruitless years of searching for Alice.

After turning down Fury's offer to go to Europe, Natasha had given Steve a file with a picture of Bucky's frozen face inside it, and warned him not to pull on the thread. As if she thought he'd do anything else. She'd then kissed him on the cheek and said _You know, I get it. Not being able to move on. It's okay. _And he'd known she wasn't just talking about Bucky.

So Steve and Sam began their search for Bucky with a decades old Soviet file. They learned bits and pieces about the Winter Soldier Program as the weeks turned into months, but they couldn't find a trace of Bucky himself.

Despite Sam's reassurance and good humor, Steve couldn't help but blame himself. When Alice had gone missing, he'd gone down in the _Valkyrie _before the search really began. And now he had a real chance at finding Bucky, a fresh trail, and he was still _useless. _He wondered if he was cursed to lose everyone he loved to nothingness.

As the search stretched on, Steve mostly avoided the public eye (Natasha had warned him to lie low after her testimony following the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.). But one welcome part of the chaos was that the Avengers had found their way back together. It became clear that HYDRA had not all been wiped out with the fall of the Triskelion; pockets of HYDRA agents and commanders had survived across the globe, and began causing their own unique brand of trouble.

It was good to be back with Tony, Thor, Bruce, and Clint, and once Natasha came back from her sabbatical it felt as if everything had come together. They seemed to work better as a team each time they came together, and in their off hours in Stark Tower Steve got to know them better as people. Bruce was an excellent cook. Clint spent half the time snoozing on the couch, and they all had a great time teaching Thor about Midgardian customs. Thor had returned to Earth after a debacle involving his brother, Dr Jane Foster, and something called the Aether, which Thor didn't seem completely able to describe.

Sam bowed out of most Avengers missions, saying he was perfectly happy to stick to the 'missing person investigation', but he got on well with everyone else (even though he seemed a little bewildered by Thor).

Sam and Natasha had silently agreed to keep Alice a secret, as Steve had known they would. They didn't even talk about Bucky with others unless Steve brought it up first. It wasn't that he wanted to keep Alice a secret from his other teammates, but he just didn't know how to bring it up. After the Triskelion it had just slipped out, but most of the time he spent with the Avengers was on mission, or vegging out at Stark Tower. So a mixture of awkwardness and not wanting to rock the boat kept him silent.

* * *

_Dear Steve,_

… _I realize I have more friends than I thought I did - either people I met through Jilí or just people I ended up chatting to while trying to escape my uncle and his gilded cages. The Anschluss has brought us together - some are still rightfully distrustful of me, but mostly there's a good group of us working to keep people safe._

_Yours,  
Alice_

* * *

Mid 2014

The asset had learned his own name: Bucky Barnes. The name felt strange, like wearing a uniform musty with age, but he didn't have anything better to call himself. He wasn't an asset any longer.

In amongst learning about himself and his past, he kept coming up against a problem. The facts were _wrong. _Whenever he read the stories about his past life, most of it called to old memories and helped him remember, but there was something missing. _Someone_.

He'd felt it when he went to the museum a few days after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell - after reading the memorial for himself he had turned, searching for a sign or a room that just wasn't there.

But after months of blankness and searching for the missing piece, he'd finally put it together. A snatch of a memory had returned in the midst of a migraine: a young girl with pale hair sitting on a stone step on a winter day, surrounded by five jeering boys. The girl's chin jutted out and her hands had curled into fists in her lap. Bucky followed the memory, wincing at the memory of being punched in the face and the skinny blonde boy - _Steve _\- being shoved into a puddle. And finally he recalled a name: _Moser._

He finally had enough to research her, and when he did it all came rushing back. _Alice. _Reading comic books in the back room of her stepfather's tailor shop, tossing rocks in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, her tearstained face at her parents' funeral, the furtive glances she and Steve used to shoot at each other. The way she'd looked, sweaty and soot-stained after a battle.

The world seemed to know her secrets these days, save for two important things: how she had died, and who she had known. Because Bucky remembered her arms around him, her gleeful smile as she said _Steve and I got married. _He'd called after her: _What? _And she'd just blown him a kiss.

Bucky doubted the memory for a long time. But more and more memories came back - Alice as a girl with watchful eyes and a wicked mind, as a bodiless voice on the radio, and as a woman with steel beneath her skin. Her place in his memories was undeniable. And yet she was missing from every story anyone told about him.

He recalled that she'd been shrouded in secrecy even when he knew her. Maybe the truth had never come out.

* * *

_Dear Steve,_

_Seems like only yesterday I was twelve years old, staring up at Brooklyn Junior High and terrified I wouldn't make any friends._

* * *

Though he didn't appear much in public these days, Steve did get back in touch with the young academic Amaya who'd asked him about life in the 30s and 40s for her thesis on Alice. She'd since published the thesis - Steve had read it, and it was about as complimentary as you could get in an academic paper. He'd written to congratulate her, they'd exchanged a few emails, and when he went back to D.C. to clear out his apartment they'd caught up for another coffee.

Amaya had a fine filigree silver ring on her ring finger when she showed up, and when he congratulated her she went bright red.

"Yes, thank you! My girlfriend, ah - how are we, on the gay thing?" she enquired, her head cocked. "I don't want to shock any 1940s sensibilities, even though you and I both know that Brooklyn wasn't exactly the deep south."

Steve couldn't help but smile. "We're all good on the gay thing. Congratulations, Amaya."

Once they had their coffee and were seated, Amaya burst out with: "I'm already working on another paper." She was marginally less nervous this time. She hadn't brought up the whole bringing-down-S.H.I.E.L.D. thing, which he thought was very generous of her. "My thesis focused on the Siren's role in the Propaganda Department - bureaucratic and political connections, that sort of thing. But I'd like to branch out more, maybe look closer at her music, or at her specific missions with the SSR."

Steve smiled. "Have you ever thought about writing a book?"

"Oh, absolutely," she nodded. Her knee bounced under the table. "I have to get more established, though. But I can definitely see myself writing a book about her, and maybe a few other female spies. Historical girl crush, you know?"

"I know," Steve said, then hid his face by sipping his coffee.

"And I thought, you know, if you're willing-"

"You'd like to ask more questions?" He preempted.

"Yes, if that's okay? Your stuff about the atmosphere in occupied Germany was really great, and your experience performing on the front with the USO? Priceless." Her eyes gleamed. "It would be mostly email, but if you were in town and available then some recorded sessions would be great. If you're able, I mean-"

"I haven't been indicted yet," Steve said with a hint of a smile. "So that should be fine. I've got some other… projects going on, so I'm not often free, but I'd love to help out where I can."

"Thank you," Amaya breathed. "You really have been so helpful. May I ask… why?" The tips of her ears burned. "Because I've asked around, and while you've responded to other historians you haven't really given them as much time as you have me."

Steve finished his coffee, thinking. "I guess I'm just a fan of history being told right."

* * *

So in between fighting with the Avengers and searching all over the world for Bucky, Steve occasionally helped Amaya with her research. There were other scholars who wrote about Alice, of course, but he'd come to trust Amaya. He'd liked the way she wrote about Alice: respectful, thoughtful - not worshipful, but as if she were a real human being. Seeing Alice treated as an interesting historical phenomenon made Steve uncomfortable.

And once the academic world began to realise that Amaya was putting out work referencing none other than _Steve Rogers_, she began to get the recognition she'd been working for. She and Steve ended up with a long email chain, and met up a handful of times over the year. He even put her in touch with Jilí, who was more than happy to correspond with the eager young researcher.

But one afternoon in late 2014, as he and Amaya sat in a practically empty diner in downtown D.C., Steve slipped up.

Amaya was quizzing him about his time in Italy: the mood on the front and the missions the SSR had undertaken. Steve was just back from busting a HYDRA base with the Avengers in South America and had just downed a pot of tea, so he felt sleepy and relaxed. Perhaps that was why he slipped.

After hearing about the 107th Tactical Team's raid on the HYDRA occupied town in Tuscany, Amaya went off on a tangent talking to herself, as she often did.

"Okay, so…" she flicked through the pile of papers she seemed to carry around everywhere. "That was February of 1944, so I can definitely work that into this paper on the Siren's Italian performance tour. She probably assisted with the intelligence for that one, since from what I can tell, Italy is where she really started going after HYDRA. And then she would've been back in France the next month, I think-"

"No, she didn't leave Italy until April," Steve said through a yawn. it wasn't until he'd finished the yawn that he noticed Amaya had gone still.

"How'd you know that?" she asked, her fingers frozen on her papers and her brow slowly lowering as she peered at him.

Steve stalled. Wide eyed, he thought of something to say. Maybe _I must've read it somewhere_-

But it was too late. "Wait, you _knew _her," Amaya breathed. Her eyes went wide.

Steve floundered for a moment longer before he gave up. "I, yes. I did."

"I _knew _it!" she exclaimed, and their server's head jerked up from where she'd been nodding off behind the counter. "You've said some other things that made me wonder, and the fact that you even spoke to me in the first place… Wait, _how _did you know her?" But Amaya didn't leave him space to answer. "The SSR? No, of course, _Brooklyn. _That must have been the same sort of year period, you're about the same age, and…" she flipped back through her notes. "What school did you go to, again?"

The corner of Steve's mouth ticked up. "Brooklyn Junior and Senior High."

Amaya's mouth dropped open.

Steve went on: "Started freshman year in homeroom 3B, two rows across and seven seats up from Alice Moser."

Amaya slumped forward in her chair, her hands rising into her hair. "I am… an _idiot_."

"No you're not," Steve laughed. "It's not something we really spread around back in the day for - for obvious reasons. And it seems like every historian since then missed out on it too."

She blew out a long, overwhelmed breath. "You _knew _her." Her eyes seemed to glaze over. "What was she… what was she like?"

"Amazing," Steve said without hesitation. "Everything you've said that she is… you're right. Smart, brave, kind…" he looked away and shook his head. "She was my best friend - as well as Bucky - growing up, and…" he shied away from telling the _whole _truth, "one of our most important allies in the war."

Amaya straightened. "You worked directly with her?"

He nodded, almost smiling again. "Eventually, yeah. It's sort of a long story."

She bit her lip, glanced down at her papers as if lost, and then looked up again. "Is this something you'd be comfortable with me sharing?"

Steve shrugged. "Keeping it secret is just a habit at this point. It can't hurt anyone if it gets out now. I'm fine with it." _And Bucky might see it_, he didn't tell her.

"You realize this is going to be the biggest break of my career," Amaya told him seriously. "If you'd rather tell this to a more established historian, or hell, a journalist, I would completely understand-"

Steve shook his head. "If anyone can tell this in a way that gives Alice ownership of her own story, then it's you. There's a reason I reached out to you in the first place." The corner of his mouth quirked up. "I like to think I'm a pretty good judge of character." His head cocked. "Not as good as Alice, but still."

Amaya drew in a breath and leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. "I cannot express to you how excited I am right now," she breathed. "Tell me everything."

* * *

January 2015

Amaya was right. With the revelation that Captain America had known - had been _friends with _\- the Siren, she established herself overnight as one of the most groundbreaking historians in the academic and public consciousness.

After a few months of interviews and emails, Amaya published her academic paper concurrently with a couple of more publicly accessible newspaper articles. The one that ended up in the _New York Times _was titled '_A Voice on the Radio: The Forgotten Connection Between World War II's Most Famous Soldier and Most Infamous Spy'._

Steve was on a mission in India when the paper and articles were published, so he didn't experience the shockwave that rippled through the public. He'd already had a chance to read the articles though. He'd signed off on them wholeheartedly.

In his interviews with Amaya he had chronicled the history of his relationship with Alice, though he had somewhat undersold the exact nature of what their relationship had become. In the article he and Alice came off as friends, but mostly as allies - kind of like his relationship with Howard, or his tactical team.

Steve told a few stories from their childhood, which Amaya had weaved into her article alongside context for the time. He told her about the radio Alice fixed up, and how they used to send each other morse code after school. He told her about Alice's budding singing career (_I was there for her first ever public performance in front of our small church gathering_), the struggles her family had faced, the Rockefeller Christmas tree lightings, and the time they'd seen Louis Armstrong perform live at the Roseland Ballroom. Some of these were stories he had told her before (without telling her about Alice's part in them), and when he revealed the whole truth she looked like Christmas had come early.

He told Amaya how _Ulysses _had become something like a code word between them, based on the Joyce novel they'd read together in class, the president whose tactics Steve had read, the Roman name for Odysseus, and the butterfly. He told her how it had been a calling card and a reminder for the course of their relationship.

Amaya included quotes from him throughout the article. The one that affected him most reading it back was in the section about the Siren's apparent support of the Nazis. Steve's words read: "_I became Captain America thinking that my friend had become a Nazi. I didn't tell the SSR about it, but it… definitely affected me. I felt like I needed to go over there and make things right."_

Following that, the article described how they'd worked together in the war. The missions Alice had been a part of, both as Al or as herself, her connections with local resistance groups, and the battle against HYDRA she'd been a part of. Steve had elaborated on the documents that had been declassified in the '70s, pointing out where Alice had actually been in the field and met with his team.

After a few interview sessions, Amaya had brought up Alice's disappearance. They discussed the evidence available, and the work that had been done to look for her.

"What do you think happened?" Amaya asked, her voice gentle.

Steve had swallowed. "I don't know. I try not to think about it, a lot of the time, because I know… whatever it was, it was bad."

She had nodded, her eyes soft. "I'm sorry."

Steve came back from his mission to find the public (and especially the academic community) buzzing with interest. Not only was this a shocking historical fact laid bare, but it was also the most Steve had revealed about himself publicly since arriving in the future. Amaya was dealing with calls and emails left right and centre (when Steve called her she picked up the phone in a flood of overwhelmed tears), but soon got her head above water.

Steve ignored all other requests to interview. He'd said everything he was ready to say. And he wasn't ready to deal with more people (perhaps less understanding than Amaya) asking him questions about Alice. Amaya had done it right.

* * *

Excerpt from article '_Shock revelation about Captain America and the Siren changes the shape of history', _in _The Washington Post_, January 15 2015:

… _the publication of the paper has, once again, forced historians and the public alike to change their understanding of the Siren's story. Both Alice Moser and Steve Rogers' legacies have been affected by this revelation, in ways which we may still be yet to understand._

… _has led to a public spike of interest in the First Avenger, notably reclusive before this bombshell interview._

… _the most poignant revelation, as many have pointed out, is this: the Siren vanished in 1945 and was despised by the world for almost thirty years, until she was revealed as a war hero and martyr in the 70s. But now, alongside her role as a spy, agent, rescuer, and hero, the public has now gotten to know Alice Moser as a friend. We have learned about her often-forgotten childhood days in Brooklyn, and about how when the time came for war, Alice Moser stepped up at the cost of her friendships, legacy, and life._

* * *

Steve's teammates either didn't notice the flurry of interest the articles had caused (Thor), made passing comments about it (Tony: "You saw Louis Armstrong live and you didn't tell me?"), or gave him a small smile and a knowing look (Natasha and Sam).

Once more the world's understanding of Alice shifted and resettled. And toward the end of January, after following up a lead in England with Sam, Steve travelled to Berlin for the first time in his life.

A local historical group in the city had set up a small event by the river Spree in Tiergarten, near the area where Alice had last performed. There was a table with cookies the group had baked, a collection of old photos and records, and a few film cameras covering the event. Steve showing up came as a surprise to everyone.

He showed up in jeans, boots, and a jacket for the weather, a far cry from the uniform most were used to seeing him in. He'd forgone his usual baseball-cap-disguise. After the initial excitement of his arrival he mostly mingled, and shook hands. But finally one of the overeager German journalists got him to say a few words.

"We're all here today because it's been seventy years," he said heavily. "Seventy years since Alice Moser went missing, last seen just over there." He nodded in the direction of the park, which was the site of the performance hall that had been demolished in the 50s. The river glittered as it slid past. Steve drew in a breath. "I know it's a long shot," he went on, "but I'm not the last person around who remembers those years. If you're out there - I don't care what side of the fight you were on, but if you know something, please come forward." His voice threatened to crack, so he drew in another breath and measured his expression. "Alice deserves to rest in peace."

* * *

_Dear Steve,_

… _I'm sorry I didn't choose to come back. I dreamed about it, you know. I got on a boat back to New York, and you and Bucky and Tom were waiting for me at the port. You all looked exactly like you did when I left, even though I know you must be different. I held you all so tight my arms hurt. And then you took my hand and you led me back home._

_I felt so lonely when I woke up. And the only reason that dream isn't real is because of this awful choice I've made. I can't go. But I've decided that when this craziness is over (because it must be over soon - other countries won't let Germany keep doing this forever. Or the Germans will realize that this is a pointless task and will give it up), I'm coming back. I'm coming back to Brooklyn. I'll buy Matthias's tailor shop and get it up and running again, and I'll sing on the radio, and I'll go to the pictures with you every Saturday._

_I'll see you then._

_Love,  
Alice_

* * *

Later that day Steve got a message from Alice Johnson, who'd been in close touch with him since the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. (she'd lost a lot of faith after hearing about HYDRA). The message simply read:

_Just saw you on the news, Steve. Thank you. I never met my aunt but I know that wherever she is, whatever happened - she'd be proud of you._

* * *

Steve hoped that wherever Bucky was, somewhere out there, that he would see this and remember.

* * *

April 2015

Then came Ultron.

Steve had a moment - just a night, really - when he thought it was over. They'd taken down the last of HYDRA, there were no other major threats facing the world, and… he didn't know what came next. The thought was frankly terrifying. He still had to find Bucky, of course, and he wanted to maybe ask Tony if he could look into Alice's missing persons case too. But other than that… when he looked into the future he saw blankness.

That night, in the midst of the party in the tower, Steve recalled sitting with Alice behind a church in France. She'd been quiet for a long time before saying _I'm worried I won't know who I am, without the war._

Steve had promised her they'd figure it out together.

Alone, he wasn't sure.

But then: Ultron.

The monster Tony made attacked them in their own home, and then they found themselves trying to hunt it down across the world. In Johannesburg, one moment Steve was fighting, and the next his mind was gone in a flicker of red light.

The world seemed to slow. He wasn't in his uniform anymore - he wore his old green Army dress uniform, his head bare and his tie loosely knotted. He blinked, looked around, and found himself in an old dance hall. He didn't recognise it, but it felt familiar. Indistinct music crooned out of an unseen radio. Lights glittered.

All of a sudden a hand landed on Steve's shoulder.

He flinched and whirled, only to see Bucky standing before him. His heart ached - this was the Bucky he'd once known, wearing a smart dress uniform, hair clipped short, a grin on his face. Bucky squeezed Steve's shoulder.

"War's over, pal," he smiled.

Then Bucky flickered, shifted. A chill of ice filled the air and Bucky's eyes went dead, his hair grew out over his shoulders, and the hand gripping Steve's shoulder was suddenly made of metal.

Steve opened his mouth. A second later the cold-eyed Soldier faded, leaving Steve alone.

Steve let out a shaky breath.

Fingers brushed his forearm, making him spin again. And this time his heart jumped into his throat, because it was _Alice. _She wasn't Al or the Siren, but his Alice: she wore a dark green tartan dress, and her smile made his heart pound.

"You can go home," Alice said with a note of song in her voice. Then she seemed to blur at the edges. Steve reached out, unspoken words stuck in his throat, but when his fingers brushed her skin she dissolved like smoke. He turned, staring, but she was gone.

Then a distant beat registered in his ears. He paced forward, chasing the noise, and soon another figure appeared before him in the empty hall. This one didn't make his heart ache with loneliness.

This figure was _himself_. But not the version of himself he saw in the mirror every day. This was a small, narrow-chested young man with floppy hair and shaking arms. The small man pummelled a sandbag over and over as if trying to draw blood, though the sandbag hardly moved. Steve circled, keeping his distance, until the boy's face came into view. It had been some time since he'd seen _that _face, but he recognised the look upon it instantly. This boy looked completely and utterly lost.

The boy threw one last ineffectual punch into the sandbag and then looked up, meeting Steve's eyes. Panting, he opened his mouth to speak.

"Isn't this what you wanted?"

* * *

Steve opened his eyes to Clint shaking his shoulder, his voice high with panic.

"I'm okay," Steve mumbled. He shook his head to clear the visions of ghosts. "I'm okay. Where's… where's Bruce?"

* * *

The world went into meltdown after the disaster in Johannesburg, and Clint took them to a farm in the middle of nowhere. He introduced them to his family.

Steve felt large and awkward in the home, watching Clint hug his children.

"Sorry for barging in on you," he managed to get out, the first of them aside from Clint and Nat to address the small family. Bruce still seemed empty-eyed and hunched in on himself after his catastrophic Hulk-out.

"Yeah, we would have called ahead," Tony said drily, "but we were busy having no idea that you existed."

Steve watched, stunned as Clint and Natasha kissed children on the head and chatted with Clint's wife Laura. Beside Steve, Thor trod on a Lego house. Steve found his gaze drifting, landing on random things throughout the room: a family portrait on the far mantlepiece, books in the bookshelf, a throw rug on the couch, a half-eaten piece of toast on the table. The house was filled with a warm, contained chaos, unlike anything Steve had seen or had for… decades.

When Thor stormed out, it was a welcome excuse to rouse himself and leave the room.

"Thor?" he called.

"I saw something in that dream," his friend called over his shoulder as he strode off the balcony and onto the lawn. "I need answers. I won't find them here."

Steve drew in a breath. _You and me both, _he didn't say. A moment later Thor swung his hammer and was gone.

And Steve found himself alone on the balcony of a beautiful, white-painted country home, surrounded by rolling hills and a garden filled with flowers.

He turned to walk back inside.

_Isn't this what you wanted? _came the ghost of his own voice from his dream.

His gaze dropped. He drew in a breath, two, and then turned to walk out into the sunshine.

* * *

_Dear Alice,_

… _I'm sorry about my last letter. I was panicked when I wrote it, I didn't mean it to come across the way it did. I guess I understand what you wrote about feeling powerless - there's really nothing I can do to help you, is there?_

* * *

After almost begging Clint to give him something to do, Steve ended up cutting a pile of logs into firewood for the house. He'd gone inside briefly to change, but it made his skin crawl. He felt _claustrophobic _inside, which didn't make sense, but he suspected it had a lot to do with the dream the Maximoff girl had given him. He understood why Thor was so rattled.

He finished turning one log to splinters, then looked up, squinting in the sun. He thought about his dream, and about the life he'd pictured for himself after the war. _I could've had something like this._ He thought he might've been happy: a family, a quiet house in the countryside with a tractor and a pile of firewood.

Steve didn't think he was jealous of Clint, not really, but he hadn't had a lot of moments to stop and reflect on his disappointed hopes since he woke up in the future. From the minute he found himself in Times Square, his heart pounding at the strangeness of it all, he'd known that all his old dreams were gone. But this place made it all feel a lot closer. And more painful.

Clint, married with kids, Tony with with Pepper, Thor with a kingdom to serve, Natasha and Bruce falling for each other… Steve couldn't help but feel, once again, like an old man running out of time.

But then, as he looked back at the house, he smiled.

_Alice would've hated this. _

Not the having a home part - he knew that was what she'd wanted after the war. But she would've hated living in the middle of nowhere, remaining a secret. He knew deep down that Alice would never have truly been able to step away from the action. He supposed they had that in common.

After that realization, Steve felt more at ease. The Maximoff girl might have made him confront the darkest, loneliest parts of himself, but she'd also allowed him to see Alice and Bucky's faces again, and to hear their voices.

When Tony wandered up with another axe, Steve was happy to work beside him in companionable silence.

Until Tony broke it. "Thor didn't say where he was going for answers?"

Steve strode over to pick a new log. "Sometimes my teammates don't tell me things. I was kinda hoping that Thor would be the exception." He regretted the words as soon as he said them - that wasn't fair, he had as many secrets as the rest of them. He supposed it might be coming from a place of guilt. Just like Clint had hidden his family from them all, so had Steve.

His eyes landed on Clint helping his son to measure a bit of wood on the balcony. He was good with kids.

"Yeah, give him time," Tony sighed. "We don't know what the Maximoff kid showed him."

Steve brought his axe down on the log, splitting it apart. "Earth's mightiest heroes," he reflected. He shook his head. "They pulled us apart like cotton candy."

"Seems like you walked away alright," Tony said with a different note in his voice.

Steve paused in setting down his new log, and looked up. "Is that a problem?"

Tony peered at him with those dark, intelligent eyes. "I don't trust a guy without a dark side." He swung his axe down at his log. "Call me old fashioned."

Steve almost blinked in surprise. He'd never seen Alice as his _dark side. _But he supposed Tony didn't really know what he was asking. Steve wondered what Tony's dream had been.

"Well let's just say you haven't seen it yet," Steve told him.

Tony's brows drew together. "You know Ultron's trying to tear us apart, right?"

"Well I guess you'd know," Steve muttered. "Whether you'd tell us is a bit of a question."

Tony had forgotten about the firewood. "Banner and I were doing research-"

"That would affect the team," Steve replied hotly. He set down his axe.

"That would _end _the team," Tony urged. Steve sidestepped him to pick up another log, his temper rising. "Isn't that the mission? Isn't that the '_why we fight'_? So we can end the fight? So we get to _go home_?"

Steve tore apart his log with his bare hands, sending splinters flying and the two halves thudding to the ground. It had the desired effect: Tony fell silent, bemused.

Steve faced him with a grave expression. "Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die." He looked into Tony's eyes. "Every time."

Clint's wife came up and interrupted them with a request, and the tension eased. Before he walked off, Tony looked back at Steve and gave him a single nod. Steve wasn't sure what it meant. But he knew that no matter how much they argued or pushed each other's buttons, they were on the same side.

"Don't take from my pile!" Tony called back, pointing at his smaller stack of firewood. Steve couldn't help but smile.

After that, Steve couldn't face cutting more wood. It had been an outlet, but his disturbed feelings after the dream had gone cold. Instead, when the sun turned a deep orange as it approached the horizon, he went to sit on the edge of the balcony, his elbows resting on his knees and his eyes on the distant forest.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting there before someone dropped down beside him.

"Beer?"

Steve looked up to see Clint sitting beside him, offering a condensation-covered bottle. He nodded, and took the beer. Wouldn't do much for him, but he still drank it for the taste, and to feel normal. Thor's Asgardian liquor had been a nice change.

Clint settled beside him, sipping occasionally from his beer, looking out over the farm. Steve could just hear the riotous noises of children from inside the house, and clinking dishes, but mostly he focused on the sound of the breeze through the grass. Clint's presence was a reassuring steadiness to his right. _Maybe..._

When Steve opened his mouth he felt as if there were hot snakes churning in his gut. "I dunno… if Nat's told you this already, but…"

Clint turned to look at him. "I don't know what this is about, but Nat isn't in the habit of spilling other peoples' personal business. Unless they're a target." His voice was low. He seemed to sense the secret tangled in Steve's throat.

Steve smiled. "So I guess she didn't tell you about Alice, then?"

Clint's face creased in confusion.

"Can't fake that," Steve sighed as he saw the expression. He tipped his head back, looking up at the orange and pink sky. _Where to start?_

"This a girl of yours?" Clint guessed.

"Guess you could say that. She's my wife."

Clint's mouth dropped. "Damn, I thought I was the only one with a secret family."

The comparison made Steve's heart ache. "I… we were only married for a few months before she… went missing, but we'd known each other since we were kids."

Clint fell silent, listening.

"I guess you know the name Alice Moser?" Steve asked.

For a few moments Clint stared blankly. But then his eyes went wide. "_Holy _\- you were… she and you…? The _Siren_?"

"Yes," Steve said simply.

For a few more moments Clint seemed to reel under the knowledge, his eyes darting. But then he seemed to collect himself: he drew in a breath, let it out, then met Steve's eyes again. "Damn. Okay." He cocked his head. "Tell me about her?"

And Steve did. Like he had with Natasha and Sam in his hospital room last year, he quietly told Clint about the girl who had been by his side in his childhood, who he'd written to for years without a hope of seeing her again, and the woman who had risked everything to protect the innocent. The woman he could not get out of his head, even seventy years later.

As the air began to cool around them and they'd finished their beers, Clint blew out a breath. "I'm so sorry, man. You deserved to have longer with her."

"I was lucky for the time we had," Steve replied softly. "But… yeah. I'm ninety six, and I knew Alice for… fifteen of those years. I wish I could've… could've…" his head dropped, and Clint set a hand on his shoulder.

"I know man. I know."

They sat silent like that for a long time. Eventually Laura came out to tell them that dinner was ready, and they had a surprise visitor. Steve pulled himself together, drew himself tall, and shared a glance with Clint. Together, they walked inside.

* * *

They regrouped themselves at the farm, and began pushing back again. They brought the Maximoff twins on board in South Korea, and back in Manhattan Tony and Bruce (with a little jumpstart from Thor) brought an entirely new being to life. Finally the struggle brought them to Sokovia, where a gruelling, heart-stopping battle culminated in an entire city rising through the cloud layer into a pale, lonely world. And an impossible choice.

"_Impact radius is getting bigger every second_," Tony told Steve over the comms. "_We're going to have to make a choice_."

Steve stumbled to a halt amidst the rubble, his chest rising and falling. Civilians rushed through the misty surface of the city around him, their faces written with fear.

"Cap, these people are going nowhere," Natasha said. "If Stark finds a way to blow this rock-"

"Not 'til everyone's safe," he said firmly.

She turned to stare at him. "Everyone up here, versus _everyone_ down there? There's no math there."

He didn't meet her gaze. "I'm not leaving this rock with one civilian on it."

"I didn't say we should leave." He finally turned to look at her then, seeing the warm, sorrowful look in her eyes. "There's worse ways to go," she said. She looked out over the landscape of clouds stretching on for miles ahead. "Where else am I going to get a view like this?"

Steve's gut clenched as he followed her gaze out to the endless sky. _Is this how you felt at the end, Alice? _he wondered. _What did you see before you went? Did you feel the same - like it was worth it?_

"_Glad you like the view, Romanoff,_" came a crackly, familiar voice over the comms. "_It's about to get better._"

The sifting clouds before them suddenly broke apart as a metal behemoth rose through them: a _helicarrier,_ glinting in the sunshine and rumbling with a dozen engines.

Over the comms, Fury explained how he'd uncovered the old helicarrier and gotten it running, but Steve could barely hear him past the surge of hope that rose in his gut.

"Fury, you son of a bitch," Steve grinned.

"_Ooh, you kiss your mother with that mouth?_"

Steve's grin spread, and he looked around. _Alright. Here we go._

* * *

_Dear Steve,_

… _I saw people whose faces I recognized smashing windows and setting fire to buildings. I saw others retreating to their homes with tears on their faces. The air tasted like smoke, and firelight glinted off the smashed glass on the street, making it look like a river of flames. _

_I fell once, and landed hands-first on the broken glass. I've gotten it all out, but I'm writing with bandage-swaddled hands now. Feeling the glass dig into my skin that night made it all suddenly, startlingly real._

_I got back up._

* * *

When the dust settled in Sokovia and Ultron had been completely eradicated, they built a new Avengers Facility. Pietro was dead and Bruce was gone, casting a shadow over them all. Steve hoped that wherever Bruce had gone he could find peace with himself.

And as they looked to the future of the Avengers, they took on new recruits: Sam, who'd finally been convinced that he _was _good enough to join, Rhodey, Wanda (who even in the depths of her grief had proved to be a kind, sensitive young woman), and the Vision.

Tony wanted to step back to spend time with Pepper, and so Steve found himself the leader once again. It felt right, but he also knew that this was just one more way of keeping himself busy. Ever since the Battle of New York he'd been desperate for a mission: S.H.I.E.L.D., then HYDRA, and now running the Avengers.

But what a distraction it was: with Tony's vision and resources, Steve's people sense, and Natasha's contacts, they ended up with a bustling facility uniquely set up to handle not only world security, but also to be at the forefront of scientific thinking.

And Steve decided it was past time to confide in his teammates.

On the day Thor decided to return home, Steve and Tony flanked Thor as they walked him outside, cracking jokes about Mjolnir and the Vision.

"I'm going to miss these little talks of ours," Thor said wryly, gripping Tony's shoulder briefly as they made their way outside.

Steve cleared his throat. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then found his pace faltering until he came to a stop just outside the door to the facility.

Tony and Thor, a few paces ahead, turned.

Tony's eyebrow quirked. "Something on your mind, gramps?"

Steve resisted a glare. He looked at Thor. "I know you've gotta leave and all" - Thor had already explained his theory about the Infinity Stones - "but I just… I think as a team, we've gotta try and be honest with each other." He swallowed. "Clint brought us to his family, which was a big show of faith, and I just…" he looked away. _Why was this always so difficult to say?_

Thor cocked his head, eyeing Steve. "You wish to tell us a secret?"

"Not a secret," Steve said automatically, then scratched his head. "I mean, yeah, I guess you could say it is."

"Bet you he's gay," Tony said in a mock-whisper to Thor.

Steve chuckled and glanced down. "No, actually. I'm, uh… married. To a woman," he clarified.

"Shut up," Tony said.

Thor's eyebrows had climbed up his forehead. "When did this happen?"

Steve furrowed his brow. "Um, about seventy years ago. Our seventieth anniversary would've been last August, actually."

Tony seemed to have taken Steve's initial announcement with a flat surprise, but at that comment his eyes shadowed. "She's dead," he said. It wasn't a question.

Steve drew in a breath. "Yes. Very probably."

"Very probably?" Thor questioned. He frowned. "I thought… I know you are an exception, but I thought that humans did not live very long."

"No, you're right," Steve acknowledged. "There's just been no concrete answer to what happened to her." He looked at Tony, who seemed to be thinking very hard. "Alice Moser."

Tony's eyebrows lifted and he let out a breath. "Damn. Sorry, Cap."

Steve and Tony didn't often express a lot of sympathy for each other, so this took Steve aback for a moment.

Thor was still frowning. "I don't understand - what happened to Alice Moser?"

Steve lifted one shoulder. "We don't know." The whole conversation had a dull ache burning in his chest, but after recounting the story a few times now it felt manageable. "She vanished back in '45. There one day, gone the next. Lots of stuff back then was shrouded in secrecy that we still don't have answers about. Best guess is…" he looked out across the Facility grounds, his gaze going distant. "She got caught. Captured, killed. And they didn't want to admit that they had a spy in their midst, so they kept it secret." He swallowed thickly.

Thor nodded slowly. "I am sorry, my friend." He reached out to grip Steve's shoulder. "Losing a loved one is a pain that never leaves, and I know how it can tear a soul apart. I don't know how it must be to still have no answers. I hope one day you will find some."

Steve smiled weakly. "Anyway. Just wanted to tell you both. Wasn't much point in keeping it to myself any longer, and it's the sort of thing you're supposed to tell your friends."

That made Thor smile warmly. Tony's face did something complicated and rapid before it settled on a scowl.

"All this time I've been calling you a hundred year old virgin and you're _married_," he said, sounding almost disgusted.

"Sorry to disappoint," Steve smiled.

* * *

Thor returned to Asgard, and Tony returned to Pepper. Steve stayed.

"Maybe I should take a page out of Barton's book," Tony said as his car rolled up. "Build Pepper a farm, hope nobody blows it up."

Steve couldn't help but smile. Privately, he thought that the only person likely to blow up his farm would be Tony himself. "The simple life."

Tony looked up, his face somehow softer after the truth Steve had just revealed. "You'll get there one day."

"I don't know," Steve replied. "Family, stability… the guy who wanted all that went into the ice seventy years ago." He glanced down. _Went into the ice knowing that his wife and best friend were gone._ "I think someone else came out."

Tony nodded, his eyes searching, and stepped toward his car door. "You alright?" he asked a few moments later.

Steve nodded, his face clearing. He might not have the people he saw himself spending the rest of his life with. His best friend might be out in the world somewhere doing who knew what and recovering from decades of brainwashing. He might never know what happened to his wife. But he looked out at the Facility he and Tony had built, bustling with soldiers and staff and the promise of positive change for the world, and he nodded.

"I'm home."

* * *

_Got to head to work now. Take care of yourself. I'm really glad you're okay._

_Yours,  
Steve._

* * *

A few months into training up the new Avengers, Steve called Amaya.

"Hi, Steve," she said when she picked up. "Haven't heard from you in a while, how are you doing?" Very considerately, she didn't bring up the you-blew-up-a-city-in-midair thing.

Steve swallowed guiltily. Ever since Amaya's big article got published he'd been meeting with her less and less. He enjoyed her company, but he was no great secret-keeper and he couldn't quite stomach the guilt of _still _hiding things from her.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," he said honestly. He didn't give her an excuse. "Look, a while back you promised me you'd do Alice's story justice, and that you'd always be honest with me. I think I… I think I ought to return the favor. Can you meet soon?"

She didn't hesitate long. "Of course. This weekend? I'll drive up to New York."

* * *

They met at the cafe below Stark Tower, the one Steve had visited a few times before the Battle of New York. Amaya had grown into her own skin these days - she still talked a lot and fussed with her notes, but he didn't see the self-doubt he'd sensed in her back when they first met for coffee in D.C. He knew she was doing well for herself, what with her new wife and her healthy academic career. She'd gone from the article about Alice and Steve knowing each other to newer and greater heights, and he knew she was currently working on a book about the resistance in Austria during the war. She'd been learning German to help with her research.

He and Amaya spoke about her latest book and about his work for a while, until Amaya finally folded her hands together and laid her warm brown eyes on him.

"Okay, spill," she said. "I've known you long enough now to know when you've got something on your mind. Whether it's something you want me to publish, or something you want to tell me in confidence, go ahead."

Steve smiled into his coffee. "You don't miss many tricks these days."

"Experience from working with reticent nonagenarians," she winked.

He set down his coffee and collected his thoughts. "You're right. I've been thinking recently about… about all the secrets in my life. And the secrets I lived with for years. I don't think I'm very good at secrecy, in the end." Amaya listened patiently. "Alice had… so many secrets. She told me all the ones she could, since she didn't keep secrets for the fun of it. But she saw their value. And only a handful of other people know this, but… I was one of her secrets."

Amaya leaned in, her coffee forgotten. "What do you mean?"

Steve reached into the pocket of his jeans, then set a small object on the table between himself and Amaya.

Steve's mother's engagement ring lay on the dark wood, gleaming in the early winter sunlight. The Smithsonian had returned the ring and a few other personal items to Steve last year after he told them either to give them back or he'd break in and steal from them again.

Amaya stared down at the simple gold and diamond ring for a few seconds before she sucked in a breath in a sudden gasp.

"I never got the chance to give Alice this," Steve said softly. "I promised… after the war, I promised I'd give her this ring. Make it official." He chuckled under his breath. "More official."

Amaya was practically buzzing with curiosity now but she stayed silent, her fingers white around her coffee mug and her gaze watchful.

Steve touched the ring, turning it slowly on the table. "I think I'd known it for years. But then, at… at that seige I told you about at Soives" - he swallowed and shook his head - "she fought with us. And I've never had a battle like it since, where I was fighting for a whole town of people but all I could think about was her. Afterwards we went to go get a Jewish family hiding in the next village over and I realized that I never wanted to leave her side. We'd been dancing around it so long…" Steve let out a long breath. "I mightn't have done anything about it, I was… I wasn't brave. Not like Alice was, anyway."

His eyes prickled. "The family was hiding in this little churchhouse, and the priest who'd been protecting them married us - in French. Mine was still patchy, I didn't understand half of what he said." He chuckled wetly, and Amaya's low, soft laugh kept him talking. "We didn't tell anyone besides Bucky, though I'm pretty sure Alice also told her handler, Otto. Before we said goodbye I gave her a drawing of this ring as a promise." Steve picked up the ring and turned it, letting it catch the light. "I… I never got to give it to her." His throat closed up and something about the ring, and the memories, had tears rising irrepressibly to his eyes. "Sorry," he croaked.

He finally looked up, and his heart nearly stopped when he saw Amaya sitting across from him, quiet tears streaming down her face. His chest shuddered.

"You loved her," Amaya said softly, her eyes red. She said it with the tone of discovery, the tone of one who had been telling a story for years which had finally become complete.

Steve nodded, still holding his mother's - Alice's - ring. "I still do."

* * *

_Love,  
Alice_

* * *

Article "_Captain America, Time, and the Keeping of Secrets: How One Grad Student Became The Breaker of Long-Forgotten Truths"_by Peter Xavier, _The Times_, November 2015:

_When Amaya Reyes put out her latest popular-history article, the world knew better than to ignore it. In recent years, Reyes has established herself not only as an incisive, well-written historian, but also as the trusted confidant of none other than the First Avenger, Captain Steve Rogers. Since her first research thesis, in which she relied upon first-hand accounts of Rogers's time in Europe, researchers the world over have been green with envy at her ability to gain and keep the trust of Captain America. _

_At first, it appeared Captain Rogers was only supplying Reyes with contextual details of the 1940s and 1930s to supplement her research - which since her undergraduate years has been focused primarily on the Siren. But it appears that Reyes proved herself a trusted recipient of the truth, and in time Captain Rogers revealed to her that not only had he known __of_ _the Siren, he had actually __known_ _her, as a childhood friend and later as a war ally. This knowledge that two such famous war figures were so closely connected took the world by storm._

_But it seems we still did not know the whole truth._

_This month, Amaya Reyes (who is on track to complete her PhD by 2017) published a new article: "The Siren's Husband". _

_It seems that most revelations about the life of the Siren come as a massive shock and a cultural reshift for the world, so one would think we would be used to it. But no one was prepared for Reyes's (or rather, Captain Rogers's) latest revelation: on a late summer night in wartorn France, a young man named Steve Rogers exchanged wedding vows with a young woman named Alice Moser._

_Reyes's article, blending Captain Rogers's own words with historical contextualisation for the events that surrounded the secret relationship and wedding, describes a story of a childhood love which became an enduring, deeply-felt bond that tied America's greatest war hero to the Germany's most infamous spy. _

_Captain Rogers is understated in his account of the time, clearly holding back, but the romance and tragedy of his relationship with Alice Moser is striking: "I never felt more myself than when we were together, those brief windows of time during the war," he is quoted in Reyes's paper. "The last time I saw Alice we didn't say goodbye, because we'd already done it so many times. I watched her go, and I never knew that it was the end."_

_Rogers expanded on the account of their "friendship" he had given previously, retelling stories from his childhood that Amaya Reyes treats with a deeply-held care and warmth. Rogers spoke of how he and Moser had sent each other coded radio transmissions while still in junior high school, exchanging the word 'Odyssey' as a kind of calling card which followed them into adulthood. _

_Reyes also includes a scan of a letter apparently sent from Moser to Rogers in October of 1938, describing a conflict Moser had with her uncle after he demanded that she perform a song for the Nazi Propaganda Department, which had led to her being essentially imprisoned in her uncle's house. The letter is a startling look into the mind of the ever-elusive Siren, and it makes her disgust and defiance against the Nazis plain. In her own words Moser grapples with secrets, lies, and her own morality. _

_The letter also appears to mark the beginning of her first foray into 'spywork', and perhaps the beginnings of her resistance network throughout Europe. She details a plan to agree to sing for the Propaganda Department, but to use the opportunity to smuggle three Jewish men out of Austria and to safety. She wrote: "All this time I've been wondering how I can theoretically have all this power as an internationally famous singer, but be almost powerless when it comes to helping my friends. Speaking out against the things happening in Austria and Germany would only have me shunned, or even arrested. But this… this is power that none of my friends have."_

_The letter also illustrates the tender, affectionate relationship between Moser and Rogers, long before their marriage in 1944. Moser writes of her sorrow that she might be making Rogers worried, and apologises for not fleeing back to the States when she had the chance. She describes a future in which she can return to Brooklyn to be with Rogers, and her family._

_The letter is signed "Love, Alice"._

_Accompanying Reyes's article's online publication came a short recorded interview with the Captain himself, a rare accomplishment. Rogers is one of the most photographed Avengers, but he rarely does video interviews. It isn't a professional recording by any means: a five minute recording from a smartphone, as the Captain speaks warmly about his wife, and why he had kept the secret for so long._

"_Those few who knew about it while I was still in the ice decided to keep it secret out of respect for her - for __our_ _\- memory. And they didn't want Alice to become 'Captain America's Wife'." Rogers pauses here, a smile on his face. "I suppose she __is__, technically, but if anything… I'm the Siren's husband."_

_One of the biggest uproars yet followed the publication of "The Siren's Husband". Rogers has assured that this is the last secret he had yet to tell, and with the completion of the often-rewritten story of the Siren, the world is still coming to grips with it. Amaya Reyes will unquestionably become one of the best-known historians of the twenty first century, a well-deserved role given her empathy and care in telling the story of the woman she admired, and that woman's husband._

_The Captain has always been a tragic figure, a man out of time, but now the world has learned that he is also a widower. What was once a story of battle and heroism has become a tragic wartime romance that has captured the hearts of historians and the public alike._

_The Siren, for her part, always a figure shrouded in history and secrets, has become clearer than ever: a brave, intelligent woman who not only hid her heroism from the tyrants she surrounded herself with, but who also hid her love for their greatest enemy from them. A woman who married the man she'd known as a small, asthmatic boy, the boy she'd seen become a man wielding a painted shield as he stormed into battle. _

_Reyes has told the story of a husband and wife who both gave their lives to ending a war and protecting the lives of the innocent. Now, with all the pieces of the story in their place, the world can finally see the Siren as she was._

* * *

A few days after Amaya's article went up, Steve found himself sitting in the Facility common room, surrounded by Avengers.

It had been a big few days. The day Amaya's article first went live Steve had kept himself busy rigorously training his new recruits, until their phones could no longer be ignored and they broke for the day. Steve had had to leave the Facility for a while to escape the stares (not so much from his teammates, who already knew, but from everyone else).

He'd gone to visit Peggy in D.C., who had held his hand while he read Amaya's article out loud to her, and cried. He'd called Jilí, who picked up with a "hello, is this the Siren's husband?", making him smile.

He had watched the world react to his last great secret.

The shock and the sympathy, he expected. But some things still took him by surprise. People wrote tributes to Alice, posted photographs of her all over the internet with words of pride and support. Almost seconds after Amaya's article went live someone updated Steve's Wikipedia page to read _Spouse: Alice Moser._ The Smithsonian must've gone back over all their records because they _finally _realized that the young, pale-haired girl in Steve's childhood drawings was Alice, and made a big announcement about it. They announced that they were going to restructure their Captain America exhibition (which was going on a worldwide tour next year) to include a whole extra segment about Alice.

And in Brooklyn, people left flowers at Alice's statue. Steve didn't visit because he knew it would be surrounded by people, but he watched photographs pour in of the statue in the shady grove becoming gradually swamped by a riot of bouquets.

On the third day someone left a life-sized version of Steve's shield at the base of the statue. For whatever reason, it was that photo that finally brought Steve to tears.

After some time to let the knowledge that the _world knew_ settle in, he'd returned to the Facility to find pretty much everyone waiting for him. To congratulate him.

Natasha had gripped his shoulder for a moment when she found him and smiled enigmatically. It was enough. Sam had reeled him in for a hug before going into therapist mode to make sure he was doing okay. Vision simply looked at Steve with those knowing, empathetic eyes and said _thank you. _Steve was met with pats on the back and congratulations, as if he'd only just gotten married instead of just announced it publicly. Even Tony dropped in for one of his occasional visits, bringing Clint with him.

They had a team dinner, discussing the article and poking fun at how Steve had kept the truth of his marriage secret from them for so long. Wanda asked about Alice, and Steve told them about her. Talking about her with his team made her feel realer than she had in years. As if he could turn around and spot her there, smiling at him.

"Y'know, I never would've pegged you as being into spies, Rogers," Clint said as he knocked back a beer on one of the comfortable orange common room couches. Beside him, Natasha rolled her eyes.

Steve frowned thoughtfully. "I never really thought of her as a spy. Well she _was, _but… it's complicated."

"Care to try explain?"

Steve thought about it, running a hand over his chin. His teammates and friends watched him, some still finishing dinner and others nursing drinks. He'd forgotten how many of them there were now: not just that original six from the Battle of New York.

Finally, he let out a breath. "Alice had to learn how to blend in," he said, thinking of their childhood. "Because she learned young that if you stuck out, you got kicked down. Her mom was a white ethnic Austrian, see, and her step-father Matthias was African-American. So Alice learned to avoid notice. She didn't do it out of cowardice, though." He leaned back, and sensed his teammates listening. "She knew what made people tick. And she couldn't stand by when she saw something wrong going down - we had that in common. But I'd go in head first, usually with Bucky behind me, and Alice would…" he smiled. "She was more quiet. And usually more effective. I used to say that she was like a bird of prey hiding behind the clouds, waiting for the perfect moment to strike."

"Sounds like a spy," Natasha said with a hint of a smile.

"Well she was, I suppose," Steve acknowledged. "Spies aren't normally known for their kindness, though - no offence" - Natasha and Clint grinned - "but that was Alice's strength. That's why I…" he cut himself off. Swallowed. "Alice used to say that her attachments made her vulnerable: her connection to me, and Bucky, and her brother, and even her handler. But she also said they were her strength. She told me that having us reminded her of the _real _version of herself, behind the constructed personality. She was a _good person_, who did everything she could to hide it." He looked away. "Of course, it could be that's what got her killed."

A long silence passed.

Finally, Tony spoke. "Y'know, I feel like I'm getting to know her. And I…" his eyes darted, a sure sign that he was uncomfortable with expressing a genuine feeling, "I can see how you two would've been good together. Sounds like Alice Moser helped give us the Steve Rogers we all know and… and put up with." Wanda chuckled. "So," Tony went on, lifting his whisky tumbler. "Here's to Alice."

For a few moments all Steve could do was stare, his eyes wide and his heart thudding unevenly in his chest. But then Natasha lifted her glass, and Clint lifted his bottle, and soon they were all raising their drinks in the air to a woman they'd never met.

They were waiting for him.

His chest aching, Steve lifted his drink to join them. When he spoke his voice was soft, but the words were amplified by the voices of every single one of his teammates:

"To Alice."

* * *

_Dear Steve,_

_If it does come to war, I know I can't ask you not to enlist. So I'll ask you now to take one goddamn minute and _ _ think _ _. Think about what you're throwing yourself into, think about the consequences. Think about what I'd say. Then decide. I think that's the most I'll get you to agree to, so I'll leave it there._

_I'll offer you the same promise._

_Yours,  
Alice._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Alice!
> 
> Steve's motivations in AoU were stupid, sorry not sorry Joss Whedon. Allow me some creative license. As I've said, this rendition of the MCU is going to be quicker paced and a bit more AU than in The Wyvern .
> 
> And thank you all for your well wishes on the move! I'm now safe and thriving in the (surprisingly) sunny UK :)


	56. Chapter Forty Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a LONG one, buckle up! Let me just get out my emotion-bashing hammer.

July, 2016

Steve stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out over the Wakandan forest without really seeing it. 

His face was still bruised and his body ached, reminders of his recent fight in the Siberian HYDRA bunker, but that was nothing to the pain beating in his chest and surging through his veins. He’d done what he’d thought was right, in the end. But he knew he’d paid an impossible price.

Looking back, he wasn’t sure where it had all started. The disaster in Lagos? Or before that, in their failures in fighting Ultron? Steve frowned. When he’d kept what he suspected about Howard and Maria’s deaths from Tony, probably. He could not justify or excuse the decision to keep that from Tony - he supposed he’d been afraid.

Maybe the Avengers had never been meant to last. Maybe Steve was always going to end up this way: a traitor, a man on the run. 

He’d written Tony a letter, recently. It had reminded him strangely of all the letters he used to write before the war and the ice. A letter across the ocean, to a friend.

_ I’m sorry. Hopefully one day you can understand. I wish we agreed on the Accords, I really do. I know you were only doing what you believe in, and that’s all any of us can do. It’s all any of us should. So no matter what, I promise you: if you need us, if you need me. I’ll be there. _

_Steve_

Mist rolled over the forest beyond the windows.

Just when the future had felt like a home, it had all fallen apart. Losing Peggy had been a blow that Steve should have been expecting, but had still hit him unawares. Then Lagos, and the Sokovia Accords… Steve might be wallowing in a pit of regret and sorrow now, but he didn’t regret standing against the Accords. He wasn’t sure what Alice would have thought of them, but he knew she would tell him that if he knew what was right, that he should fight for it. 

The team had fallen apart. Half on the side of the law, now broken and embittered by perceived betrayal, and the other half on the run. 

When he threw his lot against the Accords Committee and became a fugitive, Steve knew he would be losing all his connections. Tony, the rest of the Avengers, Amaya (she’d texted him after Peggy’s funeral, but he’d never replied), Alice Johnson (she had simply texted him to say _ Good luck _), and Jilí. He’d had to destroy all his phones, and leave everyone outside his small group of fugitives in the dark. He wondered what they thought of him.

He’d also left behind his letters. He’d read them over several times by now, but the thought of them gathering dust in an abandoned home once again made his heart ache.

_ I’m sorry_, he thought. He’d cut off all his connections to Alice’s memory and her remaining family. _ I hope you’d understand. _

He was no longer sure what Alice would think of all this. The world was so much stranger and bigger than it had been when she was alive.

But he had Bucky back. 

Standing before the window, Steve finally looked away from the forest and to his right. Bucky stood next to him, also a little beat up, his long hair brushed around his face and his eyes fixed on the forest. A rubber sleeve concealed the broken mess of his torn-off metal arm. He wore clean clothes, provided by the Wakandans, and if Steve listened closely he could hear the Wakandan doctors in the room behind them prepping for the upcoming procedure.

Sensing Steve’s gaze, Bucky looked over at him. “Hey, pal,” he said, his voice low as if he was unused to using it.

Steve gave him a small smile, which was more bravado than happiness. “Hey,” he said. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m alright,” Bucky replied, though Steve suspected it was a lie. 

Steve was still getting used to this new Bucky: quiet, his thoughts hidden behind cold eyes that, if you looked close enough, hid impossible grief in their depths. 

Ever since Steve had found him in Bucharest, they hadn’t mentioned Alice. 

In the warehouse after the disaster in Berlin, Bucky had said _ Your mom’s name was Sarah. you used to wear newspapers in your shoes _, and Steve had felt like his heart was breaking.

The memory of Alice had hovered between them since then, but there hadn’t been time to bring it up, let alone reminisce. 

As if sensing Steve’s thoughts, Bucky cocked his head. Something like a _ gleam _entered his eyes. “So everyone knows you’re married now, huh?”. 

Steve’s heart thudded. Amaya’s article felt like a million years ago. “I… yeah, they do.”

Bucky smiled then, a lopsided thing that made his face years younger. After a brief moment, the smile was snuffed out. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to do it sooner, Steve.”

Steve swallowed. “Do you… remember her?”

The smile returned, and Bucky reached up to scratch the back of his head. “I do,” he breathed. “Alice Moser…” he shook his head, still smiling. “Troublemaker.”

Steve felt his heart shatter and reform, his best friend’s voice bringing back dozens of small memories: hiding in an alleyway and stifling laughter as Billy Russel and his friends itched themselves raw, Bucky in dock-worker overalls waving like a madman from the other side of a street, Bucky shaking his head as he read over a much-folded letter, baseball games and bottom-shelf whisky and Alice jumping over the campfire in Italy to throw herself into his and Bucky’s arms.

Seeing Steve’s welling eyes, Bucky drew in a deep breath and reached out to grip his shoulder. “I’m sorry. They… they never found her?”

It was a question, but Steve could tell from the tone of his voice that Bucky had read everything he had, too.

“No,” Steve said thickly. He looked resolutely out the window. “And I tried, Buck, I really did, but… I just… I don’t know what happened to her.” His eyes squeezed shut. 

Bucky held his shoulder for a long moment, both of them standing in silence.

But then:

“She’d be proud of you, punk.”

Steve’s eyes flew open, and he looked back at Bucky. Bucky was looking at Steve, but couldn’t quite meet his eyes. 

“She would be,” Bucky went on. “My memory might be shit, but I know… I know she’d be proud of you. Everything you’ve done.”

The emphasis on _ everything _made Steve’s throat close up. “Thank you,” he eventually managed to get out. Then he added, softly: “Jerk.”

Bucky’s watery smile was there and gone. His eyes drifted back out to the forest. “I’m kinda glad, though, that Alice didn’t have to see… all this.” His jerked his chin, as if referring to their past few weeks, and Steve didn’t miss how his eyes flickered down to the nub of his metal arm.

It was Steve’s turn to reach out and grip Bucky’s shoulder. “She’d be glad to know that you’re alive, Bucky. That you have a future.” He looked over his shoulder, at the plate glass wall looking into the Wakandan laboratory. A handful of scientists were checking the readings on what looked like a tall glass tube. “She wouldn’t want you to do this.”

“Yeah, well,” Bucky sniffed. “She’s not the boss of me. And neither are you,” he said pointedly.

Steve nodded, his smile a little shaky. 

A smooth _ whoosh _sounded behind them as the door to the lab slid open. Steve and Bucky both looked over to see the Wakandan princess standing there, a tablet in her hands and her eyes warm. 

“We’re ready for you.”

* * *

When Steve watched the frost creep over Bucky’s face, he fought back the rising feeling of horror and loneliness. This was what Bucky needed. Princess Shuri had promised him she’d work quickly to help clear Bucky’s triggers, and T’Challa had promised to keep him safe.

Steve let out a long breath and lifted his hand to his chest. There, on the end of a chain that he’d been wearing for years now, hung the ring he’d never given Alice. 

_ I won’t let him down _ , he promised. His heart felt raw and beaten. _ I’ll look after him._

* * *

July 2017

A year later, Steve returned to Wakanda. 

He, Sam, Natasha, and Wanda had been hunting down weapons traffickers in Southeast Asia for the last two months, and had earned themselves a few days rest. Sam and Natasha were establishing a new safehouse in Bali, Wanda had gone off who knew where, and Steve had decided to visit Wakanda.

This last year had changed him more than any other (save maybe for the year he got the super soldier serum). Cut off from any semblance of normality on the run, he had had to take account of who he was and what he stood for. He wasn’t a soldier any more - you couldn’t be a soldier on the run. Soldiers were a part of an army. At best he thought he could be called a rogue mercenary, at worst a terrorist. Fugitive, certainly. 

To keep himself sane at night, he turned back to what Erskine had told him that night before the serum: _ not a soldier, but a good man. _

He hoped he was still a good man.

He drove into Wakanda in a stolen truck, since Sam and Nat had the Quinjet. The blue-clad Border Tribe threatened him with their curved sabers for a while, until the order came through their Kimoyo beads to let Steve pass. He figured it had been better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.

Steve stopped quickly at the royal palace first, to pay his respects. He could feel T’Challa and his family looking at him sideways, at all the ways he’d changed.

He wore civilian clothes (not the dark-tinted suit which he wore into battle these days); dark trousers and a beat-up brown leather jacket, the collar of which just brushed the end of his new beard. He’d never gone bearded before (he couldn’t, before the serum), and he found it helped keep him from being recognised. In the harsh central African sun he’d also gone for sunglasses. 

Sometimes, particularly wearing his old, disfigured suit, he caught glimpses of himself in the mirror and it took him aback. He’d become the man he needed to be in this new world, but sometimes he wondered… _ would she recognise me? _ Each time, as different as he looked, he knew the answer was _ yes. _ Alice had recognized him after the serum from just his voice and face, when he hadn’t even realised that the skinny, grubby young man who’d arrived in his campsite was actually a woman. 

None of the Wakandans commented on the changes - physical and deeper - that he’d returned with. He exchanged a few minutes of conversation with King T’Challa about the global situation and the work of the Fugitive Avengers, before T’Challa told him where he needed to go. 

“I can offer you a speeder-”

“It’s fine, thanks,” Steve said with a ghost of a smile. “I’ll walk.”

He set off from the royal palace, blending as best he could in the eclectic and colorful crowds in Birnin Zana. He sensed guards watching him from a distance. The city gave way to sprawling suburbs, and then to countryside. The suspicious glances of guards turned into the curious eyes of farmers.

Long brown grass swished around Steve’s ankles as he hiked the rolling hills. Birds sang in the dense forest that sprawled around him. The sun beat warm on the back of his neck, sending tension spiralling out of him. It felt safe here.

Finally Steve reached the top of another hill and looked down to see a glittering lake stretching away in the distance, and before it, a small village of huts. His eyes travelled east, and he spotted a lone hut in a grass field by a goat pen. A man squatted on the roof of the hut, hunched over. Steve’s eyebrows rose.

He strode down the hill. He was pretty sure Bucky had already sensed him as soon as he crested the rise of the hill, but didn’t move from his position on the roof - when Steve got close enough he could see that Bucky was repairing a hole in the thatch. Bucky wore brown trousers, muddy boots, and had a colorful fabric sling shrouding his missing arm. He looked over his shoulder as Steve approached, his long hair piled on top of his head and tied by what looked like a thin length of twine.

Finally when they were within speaking distance, Bucky hopped off the roof, lifted his single hand to shade his eyes and grinned. “They warned me you were coming.”

Steve didn’t bother asking _ how_. He just strode up to his friend and reeled him in for a hug. “Sorry I couldn’t come sooner, pal,” he said as Bucky patted him on the back. “I didn’t want to draw any attention back to Wakanda.”

Bucky pulled back to look him in the face. He looked so much healthier than the last time Steve had seen him; suntanned and somehow more whole. “It’s alright, I only woke up about six months ago anyway. And the quiet’s been nice.”

Steve looked around at the hut, the field, and the glimpse of the distant lake. “You’ve got a good setup here.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said contemplatively as he followed Steve’s gaze. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Except for these little kids from the village who come and knock over all my shit. And the goats.” He narrowed his eyes at the five goats ambling around inside the wooden pen. “They chewed that hole in my roof.”

Steve chuckled. He hadn’t done that in a while.

They chatted like old times as Bucky washed the grime off his face and began preparing lunch on a coalpit out the back of his house. The vegetable stew they set bubbling in a pot reminded Steve of the makeshift meals they’d had in the war, a mix of rations and whatever they could scrounge from their surroundings. _ It’s no Dernier special_, Bucky said, referring to their French comrade’s ability to source edible mushrooms, herbs, and even bark from the forest, _ but it’ll do. _

Steve asked about Bucky’s recovery, which seemed to be progressing in leaps and bounds, and Bucky asked questions about the outside world. He didn’t seem surprised when Steve told him about the ongoing manhunt for the fugitive Avengers, or the various covert missions Steve and the others had undertaken. 

As they settled down on woven mats on the grass with bowls of steaming stew, Steve told Bucky about the setup of the Accords Committee and how the legitimate Avengers operated these days.

Bucky listened closely, scratching his chin. He let out a sigh. “What d’you think Alice would think about all this?”

Steve swallowed his mouthful. “These days, I have no idea. It’s been so long, and the world has changed so much-”

Bucky cocked his head. “I don’t know. You always seemed to understand Alice pretty well. She might be long distant from all this, but I reckon… she’d definitely have something to say.”

“But she wouldn’t say it,” Steve said. “She’d just _ act. _ She’d do _ something _to try and fix all this: the Accords, the Avengers splitting up, the world turning on its head.”

“Could be that this isn’t a situation where _ action _will fix it,” Bucky mused. “Could just be time.”

“We’ve had plenty of that,” Steve said morosely. He dug into his stew again.

A few moments of silence passed. Trees rustled in the breeze, and the goats in the pen bleated. 

“How are you, Steve?”

Steve looked up, eyebrows raised, to see Bucky watching him closely. His bowl was balanced on his knee and he held his fork in his hand, but his focus was entirely on Steve.

“Me? I’m fine,” Steve said bemusedly. 

Bucky’s brow lowered. “You’re allowed to not be fine, you know.” 

Steve hesitated, feeling very suddenly like he’d been caught in a trap. 

Bucky’s lips quirked up. “You don’t gotta look like that, Steve. I’m just saying.” 

“I know,” Steve sighed. “And I am doing okay, really. You know me, one foot in front of the other.”

“I do know,” Bucky nodded. He cocked his head. “And how are you… about Alice? For you it’s been, what…”

“Five years,” Steve finished for him, as he went back for another mouthful of stew. “Give or take.”

“Give or take,” Bucky echoed, his voice soft. 

Steve sighed. “I’m alright, for the most part. Too busy these days to spend much time thinking about the past.” He swallowed thickly. “But I guess… it’s not something that’s ever healed, you know? I still don’t understand how with all the resources and time in the world, we haven’t been able to figure out what happened to her. I know she’s gotta be long dead, but I don’t have…” his mouth opened and closed. 

“Closure,” Bucky finished.

Steve looked up, half-smiling. “That’s a therapy word.”

Bucky shrugged. “Therapy’s good for ya, Steve. You oughta try it.”

He chuckled. “Know any therapists doing discount rates for international fugitives?”

“Yes, actually,” Bucky replied with a gleam in his eyes. 

Steve laughed, a startling burst of noise which gradually subsided into silence. Bucky had always been good at this: reminding Steve that underneath it all, he was human. 

Another breeze rustled through the grass, cooling the sweat on the back of Steve’s neck. Bucky scraped his bowl clean with his spoon, leaving almost nothing behind. Steve watched him, reminded of how they used to eat like that back in the 30s when food was scarce. _ Some habits never die. _

“I can hear her sometimes,” Steve said into the silence.

Bucky looked up. “Alice?”

Steve nodded, avoiding his gaze. “Yeah, when I… when I sleep, sometimes. There’s no words, but I can just… I can hear her voice.”

“Like a siren,” Bucky reflected.

Steve sighed. “Just like a siren.” He shook his head. “I know I oughta try to stop it, try sleep therapy or something - you know, if I _ could _ \- or take drugs to help me sleep better, but it… it…”

“It feels like you still have her with you,” Bucky murmured.

Steve nodded silently. 

With a furrow between his brows, Bucky leaned across and set his hand on Steve’s shoulder. His grip was warm and reassuring. “You’re going to be alright, Steve. I promise.”

And even though everything was broken, Steve thought _ maybe there is a future here._

* * *

May 2018

A year later, when Steve watched Bucky crumble away into nothing before his very eyes, his heart stopped in his chest. He felt himself breathe in. Breathe out.

And then his gaze lifted to see others fading away, ash on the wind. And he knew that the future was over. 

He had failed it.

* * *

“I used the stones to destroy the stones,” hissed Thanos days later, half-charred as he lay on the floor of his hut on a far-off planet. Steve, standing furthest from the titan, felt hope shrivel and die within him. “It nearly killed me. But the work is _ done. _ It _ always will be. _ ” Thanos rose, almost smiling. “I am _ inevitable. _”

Seconds later Thor roared and cleaved Thanos’s head from his shoulders.

Steve felt nothing.

* * *

They returned to earth in silence.

* * *

Bruce didn’t walk inside the Facility after the rest of them. The others were moving on autopilot, their feet dragging and their faces blank. But Bruce stood, and stared. 

Steve waited with him.

Finally, Bruce reached out to set a shaking hand on Steve’s shoulder, like an old man seeking support, and met his gaze with warm, heartbroken eyes.

_ I can’t be here, _ Bruce said hoarsely. _ I can’t… I don’t… I don’t know who I am anymore. _

Steve didn’t know if Bruce was asking permission, or apologizing.

_ It’s okay _, was all he said in reply.

* * *

At Natasha’s request, Steve tried calling Clint again. He hadn’t been answering their calls since the Decimation, but they knew that he hadn’t become one of the vanished. They had highway patrol footage of him doing a hundred miles an hour driving away from his country home an hour after the Decimation. 

Steve’s call went straight to voicemail.

_ He doesn’t want to talk to us, _Steve said.

* * *

Thor and Steve ran into each other at the door. 

_ I’m going to find the Asgardians, _Thor said.

_ Are there any left? _

_ Some. Some are survivors from Tha- the attack. Others left Asgard long ago. They are scattered across the universe, and not all will want to come to Earth, but we need… _ Thor’s voice broke. _ We need each other. _

Steve didn’t say _ good luck._

* * *

Natasha came to him with a fire in her eyes, and told him she was going to keep fighting to protect everyone who was left. _ It’s the only thing we can do _, she urged.

_ I’m sorry _, Steve told her. 

And he left.

* * *

Steve and Tony didn’t talk.

* * *

Five Years Later

Steve had made a life for himself after tragedies before. And after the Decimation, he wasn’t the only one forced to eat, sleep, breathe and live on, in the absence of half a universe. So he put one foot in front of the other.

From an outside perspective, he might even appear well-adjusted. He got himself an apartment in Brooklyn and got to work - first cleaning up the damage from the day of the Decimation, and then helping other people put their lives back together. He stayed clean shaven, made sure to shower each morning and dress presentably.

But under the surface, he felt… well, he felt like everything meaningful inside him had crumbled to ash and blown away in the breeze. 

Grief didn’t feel like anything else: it could be a smothering weight, a gaping vacuum, a thick burning bind around the chest. And yet it felt like everything else: fury and tragedy and love fused into one. 

Sometimes Steve sat alone in his apartment, in the hours when he didn’t have the energy to distract himself, and suffocated under the pressing weight of it all.

Mostly it was anger. Selfish anger that everything he loved was inevitably torn away from him, anger at the loneliness, and a towering inferno of anger that he’d _ failed _ . He’d failed Alice, failed Bucky, failed Tony, failed Vision and Wanda and Sam and T’Challa and Strange and _ everyone. _ In the grand scheme of things, most human failures meant nothing - mere drops in an ocean. Trust Steve to make the one failure which changed the shape of the universe. 

As the world slowly began to attempt to put itself back together, Steve found himself grieving Alice all the more potently. It was as if the massive amount of grief had compounded and sharpened, making old hurts more painful. He finally understood what Bucky had said, back in Wakanda: _ I’m glad that Alice didn’t have to see this. _

Outwardly well-adjusted, Steve started community therapy sessions. When he first set the chairs in a circle in the disused community hall he swore he felt, for just a moment, Sam’s reassuring presence.

The people who came broke his heart. They told him how they put one foot in front of another.

“And that’s it,” he told them one cold October morning. “That’s those little brave baby steps we’ve gotta take. To try and become whole again, try and find purpose.” 

He glanced down, his arms crossed. “I went in the ice in ‘45 right after I married the love of my life.” He tried to turn the grimace on his face into a smile. The others nodded, listening. He’d told them about Alice before. “Woke up seventy years later.” He lifted one shoulder in an aborted shrug, looking around at them all. “You gotta move on.” His jaw clenched.

He looked across the circle, meeting the eyes of one of the participants, but after a moment he had to drop his gaze. He looked down again, feeling his face fall. “You’ve got to move on.”

Steve swallowed and drew in a breath. _ You’re the leader here, _ he reminded himself. _ There’s a time and place for falling apart, and right now… these people need hope. _ He held up a hand, mustering courage. “The world is in our hands,” he said with a small smile. “It’s left to us, guys. We _ gotta _do something with it. Otherwise…” he shrugged again, feeling his gut clench. “Thanos should’ve killed all of us.”

* * *

When he arrived back at the Facility to see Natasha sitting alone, her folded hands pressed to her face as she fought back tears, Steve hesitated. He’d never seen Natasha cry before. 

“You know, I’d offer to cook you dinner, but you seem pretty miserable already,” he said, keeping his voice low and light. 

Her entire demeanour instantly shifted - she dropped her hands and her expression became one of calm repose, not devastation. He had to admire her for it.

She looked over, eyebrow arched. “Are you here to do your laundry?”

He leaned against the bookshelf. “And to see a friend.”

She let out a measured breath and looked up at the ceiling. “Clearly, your friend is fine.”

Steve looked down. He’d known Natasha for years now, but the Decimation had changed everyone. He wasn’t sure what she needed. “You know, I saw a pod of whales when I was coming over the bridge.”

“In the Hudson?”

“There’s fewer ships, cleaner water…”

Natasha broke eye contact and looked away again, eyes gleaming. “If you’re about to tell me to look on the bright side, um…” she looked back. “I’m about to hit you in the head with a peanut butter sandwich.”

“Hm,” Steve smiled. “Sorry. Force of habit.” He strode into the room, dropping down into the seat across from her. She slid her sandwich across the table to him. Steve folded his arms. The therapy session was still on his mind. His words seemed to be doing his participants good, but no matter what, Steve never managed to convince _ himself. _

He felt Natasha watching him, and looked up to meet her eyes. “You know, I keep telling everybody they should move on, and… grow.” She stared back at him flatly. “Some do.” He shook his head. “But not us.”

“If I move on, who does this?” she said softly.

“Maybe it doesn’t need to be done.” Steve had had to step back from being a soldier for once, for his own sanity. 

Natasha’s eyes welled, and yet she smiled. “I used to have nothing. And then I got this. This job…” something stirred in her eyes. “This family.” Steve watched a tear track down her cheek. “And I was… I was better because of it.” Her jaw worked as she got out the words, as if they were causing her pain. “And even though they’re gone…” She let out a huff of a laugh. “I’m still trying to be better.”

Steve held her gaze for a moment, feeling her pain shiver in the air around him. He met her small, sad smile. “I think we both need to get a life.”

She smiled, cheeks shining, and finally met him with that knowing, enigmatic gaze. “You first.”

* * *

Hope, when it came in the form of Scott Lang at the front door, felt like a serrated blade on old wounds. But Steve instantly knew he had to press into the pain of hope, to allow himself to imagine something different. 

Like Natasha had said: _ If I move on, who does this?_

* * *

After days of convincing, gathering, planning, building, reunions, and heartache, it all came down to a collection of previously-scattered humans and aliens in a lounge room in the Avengers Facility. And they were looking to Steve. He rose to his feet and drew in a steadying breath.

“Six stones. Three teams. One shot.”

* * *

Sam had once asked Steve if he came up with his speeches off the top of his head, or if he planned it out beforehand. As Steve walked with his teammates and friends - _ family _ \- onto the Quantum Bridge in the pale light of sunrise, he instinctively knew what he would say. He’d had these words inside him for five long years.

When they were ready, they gathered in a circle on the bridge and put their fists together. Steve made sure he looked every single one of them in the eye before he spoke.

“Five years ago we lost,” he began. “All of us. We lost friends. We lost family. We lost a part of ourselves. Today we have a chance to take it all back.” He tried to steady his pounding heart. “You know your teams, you know your missions. Get the stones, get them back.” He looked around at them all. “One round trip each. No mistakes, no do-overs.”

He saw nerves and something much larger than hope in each face he looked into. “Most of us are going somewhere we know, but that doesn’t mean that you should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other.” 

He drew in a breath. “This is the fight of our lives. And we’re going to win.” Tony looked across at him at that, and Steve met his eyes. “Whatever it takes.” He nodded. “Good luck.”

* * *

Their mission back in time was a mad rush of subterfuge, stalking their old selves (Steve had to admit he felt bad beating up his old self, since he knew exactly what that poor kid was dealing with), elusive stones, and mistakes. After the fumble in 2012 New York Steve and Tony rapidly worked out a backup plan in 1970. 

They snuck into the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters at Camp Lehigh. On his way through the bustling main work space to find Dr Pym’s laboratory, Steve glanced around to find his eye caught by the far wall: a burnished metal sign adorned with black logos. _ The Wall of Valor. _ He didn’t stop moving, but he scanned the SSR logos on the top left. _ Dr Abraham Erskine. Sgt. James “Bucky” Barnes. Captain Steve Rogers. _And to the right of his name was an SSR logo that… didn’t have a name under it. Steve’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. 

Alice’s files hadn’t been declassified yet in 1970. The world knew her only as a Nazi, even twenty five years after her disappearance.

And yet she was still here, in the form of an unnamed SSR logo by Steve’s side. 

_ Even here and now, you’re gone. _

Steve shook his head. _ Focus. _ He was fighting now to bring everyone back. But some people couldn’t be saved.

He frowned at the thought. 

* * *

They returned to the Quantum Bridge, and the world changed.

Natasha was gone. But they’d done it - retrieved all six stones, and created an Infinity Gauntlet of their own.

Bruce groaned under the power of the Infinity Stones. “Everybody comes home.” He snapped his fingers.

And then the world imploded.

* * *

Steve lay on a burning battlefield, bleeding into the dirt. 

His body, normally so impervious, was lit up with pain like a lightning rod: the explosion, the fight, it was all too much. His shield lay shattered beside him. Tony was down - beaten into the earth by Thanos. Thor, too. The others were gone, probably crushed under the wreckage.

The sky was thick with choking black smoke. The only light came from the flames flickering around him.

Groaning, teeth clenched, Steve rolled over onto his front, using the shattered half of his shield to prop his arm. 

Thanos’s cold voice rolled across the ruins. “In all my years of conquest, violence… slaughter... it was never personal.”

Steve fought for breath, the very effort of straining to keep his head off the ground like molten metal sluicing down his spine. He managed to tilt his head to look at Thanos’s impassive face.

“But I’ll tell you now,” said the titan, “what I’m about to do to your stubborn, annoying little planet…” he turned dark, flat eyes on Steve. “I’m going to enjoy it. Very, very much.”

Blue light bloomed to life in the distance behind Thanos and for a moment Steve thought, wildly: _ Thor. _But then the light resolved, revealing figures standing on the barren rock, and Steve’s arm shook and crumpled beneath him.

Thanos had brought an army - had brought _ armies. _ The sheer mass of them made it seem as if the landscape was moving: soldiers and warships and spaceships and strange, multi-limbed creatures with flashing teeth. They strode forward toward their commander with weapons aloft. Dropships came down to earth, making the ground rumble, and Leviathans with glinting armor curled out of the sky around them. Steve felt the percussion of thousands of footsteps thudding through the ground beneath him. 

Steve looked down. He lay on the ground, helpless and groaning, his limbs shaking and his heart a sluggish, defeated thump in his chest. 

_ This isn’t who I am. _

Steve had had to confront all the dark and complicated parts of himself over the years. He’d faced his dishonesty, his selfishness, his pride. He knew he’d gone through changes throughout the tangled, painful mess of his life, but he _ knew _this wasn’t him. This wasn’t the Avenger he was. This wasn’t the man Bucky fought beside, the man Alice loved.

Steve drew in a sharp breath and pulled his knees under him, gritting out a cry.

As if he’d conjured her, he could feel Alice; her touch against his skin, her warm voice in his mind. Even as he stared down at the black, broken rock he saw a night from decades ago: Alice haloed by the orange light of Matthias’s tailor shop, her fingers bloody, ripping adhesive tape with her teeth before using it to patch a gash in his injured face. 

_ Well if nothing else, you’re persistent _ , the ghost of her voice said. _ Anyone else would have given up on fighting back by now. _

Steve rose to a kneel.

_ Can’t do that- _he remembered saying.

_ I know, I know _ , Alice had soothed as she swabbed a wound. And she’d imitated him perfectly: ‘ _ Start running, you’ll never stop. _’

Steve pushed up, staggering to his feet, closing his eyes against the pain - but he was standing.

He remembered looking back on that moment in the tailor shop time and time again; Alice’s face over his, startling him with her earnestness and that slight hint of danger she hid in her eyes. _ I’m not running either, Steve. _

Steve stood, facing down Thanos and the largest army he’d ever seen, alone, with a broken shield on his arm.

He strode forward. _ I’m not running._

* * *

When the golden portals opened across the battlefield and life poured through, Steve had to close his eyes for a moment to cope with the rush of relief and _ rightness _he felt. He didn’t have to move on. He didn’t have to die alone.

_ They came back. _

He opened his eyes to see Bucky looking back at him. Bucky nodded, and Steve felt something settling back into place in his chest. Hundreds of people - _ Avengers _ \- marched forward to stand beside Steve.

“Avengers!” he called, his voice stronger than it had been in years. He narrowed his eyes at the army across the field, at Thanos with his shining blade. “_ Assemble. _”

They surged forward as one, roaring, and Steve threw himself into the fight of his life.

* * *

Thanos and his armies faded away into nothing.

When the smoke over the destroyed compound cleared, and they all began to heal, they had to decide what to do with the Stones.

Tony wasn’t going to get out of hospital for a while, what with his charred arm and the fact he’d come closer to death than any of them, but he kept sending Steve messages with all sorts of opinions about the Stones. Steve just kept replying ‘_ get well soon’ _, to annoy him. 

Natasha offered immediately to return the Stones - she’d had her own space adventure already, after appearing whole again on Vormir when the timelines shifted. Steve suspected that she was feeling a little smothered by Clint, who had welcomed her back to earth with a lot of tears, yelling, and comfort. 

As the world rejoiced and began to grapple with the enormity of having everyone they’d lost suddenly returned to them, the Avengers rejoiced in their own way, and figured out how to put the Stones to rest. Pretty much everyone volunteered to be the one to step back in time to return them all to their places.

But Steve knew it had to be him. 

* * *

There were only a few people there on the day Steve set off to return the Stones. Most of the others were with their families, or working to manage the uproar and confusion following the return of the Decimated. Problems had cropped up all over the universe. Surprisingly, not everyone was happy that Thanos had been defeated. 

Steve was happy, for now, to leave all that to the others. 

So one pale morning, Steve arrived at the forest just beyond the ruins of the Avengers Facility, where Bruce had been building the newest Quantum Bridge (with Tony collaborating remotely from his hospital room). Bruce was there to control the Bridge, and Sam, Bucky, and Natasha had come to see Steve off.

This time Steve wore a new uniform. Tony had actually made it for him a few weeks ago, before they’d realized he needed to wear his old 2012 uniform to make the time heist work. This uniform was dark, like his uniform when he’d been on the run, but with a suggestion of the original design: the stars and stripes were still there, understated. 

He listened carefully as Bruce handed him the updated Time-GPS and explained the relevant science and timing behind the new Quantum Bridge. The forest was quiet, just breeze rustling through the branches and distantly-calling birds. Just a few hundred yards away crews were still picking over the remains of the destroyed facility, salvaging equipment and technology. Tony had already had his robots dredged out of the wreckage.

“Remember,” Bruce said seriously, “You have to return the stones to the _ exact _moment you got them, or you’re going to open up a bunch of nasty alternative realities.” He looked down at the eerily glowing Stones in the briefcase.

“Don’t worry, Bruce,” Steve said as he reached out to close the case. He nodded to himself. “Clip all the branches.”

Standing on Bruce’s other side, Natasha crossed her arms over her chest. “You _ sure _you don’t need a hand?” she asked wryly.

“I’m sure,” Steve said, meeting her smile. “I’ll be alright without a babysitter.”

With the briefcase in his hand, Steve turned and strode toward the Quantum Bridge. This one looked a little more home-made, stripped back to the bare metal basics and hooked up to a set of thick power cables which stretched back to the forest before hooking into the grid. It was surrounded by prefabricated buildings and tents, in which the components had been made. 

Sam fell into step beside Steve. “You know, if you want, I can come with you.”

Steve smiled and stopped to face him. “You’re a good man, Sam. This one’s on me, though.”

Sam nodded. Steve looked up and saw Bucky waiting beside the steps up to the Bridge, his hands in his pockets and a look of concern in his eyes. Bucky had been accepted into the fold of Avengers after the battle, and he and Tony seemed to have reconciled. 

Steve flashed Bucky a smile. “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

“How can I?” Bucky replied wryly. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

Chuckling, they leaned in to grip each other in a hug. Steve held him tight. 

As they released each other, Bucky murmured: “Gonna miss you, buddy.” As if he thought Steve might not come back.

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck,” Steve promised. With a lopsided smile Bucky stepped back to stand beside Sam. Natasha and Bruce watched from the control panel.

Steve drew in a breath and climbed up to the Quantum Bridge. It began powering up as Bruce initiated the startup sequence from the control panel, the complicated engines humming to life. 

He’d been thinking about this moment ever since Thanos’s armies faded away on the battlefield. He had timelines and realities swirling through his head, a case full of the most powerful Stones in the universe, Mjolnir sitting by his feet, and his friends watching him. 

On the Bridge, he hit the Time-GPS on his wrist and felt the white and red Quantum Suit ripple out on top of his uniform. 

“How long is this gonna take?” he heard Sam ask Bruce.

“For him? As long as he needs. For us? Five seconds.”

Steve reached down, gripped Mjolnir around the handle and lifted it. He felt sparks crackle up his arm. 

“Ready, Cap?” Bruce called. Steve nodded. “Alright. No detours or diversions, we’ll meet you back here, okay?”

“You bet,” Steve said evenly. He felt Natasha eyeing him like a hawk, and Bucky watching with a knowing look on his face. His helmet closed over his face.

Bruce’s large fingers danced over the control panel. “Going quantum. Three, two, one…”

And Steve was gone.

* * *

What was only seconds for those waiting around the Quantum Bridge was the adventure of a lifetime for Steve. He travelled across the universe through the Quantum Realm, returning the Infinity Stones to the moments they’d been stolen from, and closing off all the alternative realities. 

At the end of it all, he disobeyed his instructions. He’d just returned the Tesseract - it had been a bloody pain trying to sort out the tangled timelines caused by Loki - and picked up a new unpainted Vibranium shield from Wakanda. That was against protocol.

But his biggest transgression was yet to come. 

Steve set a date, and a place, that he knew he _ definitely _wasn’t supposed to go to.

* * *

January, 1945  
Berlin

Steve entered the function building dressed as a socialite, in a sleek dark suit and shiny shoes. He had a slightly-mismatching satchel bag on his shoulder, hiding his shield and Mjolnir. He managed to squeeze in through a bottleneck of similarly-dressed people at the door, using the hubbub to avoid the ticket collectors. The building had become a social hub for the evening, dinners and parties and performances on several floors to allow the German elite to party the night away. 

Once he’d slipped into the foyer, Steve looked around. Six chandeliers lit up the space with a rich, golden light, and the air buzzed with conversation, laughter, and clinking glasses. Rich furnishings adorned the whole area. Scents of cigarette smoke and perfume filled Steve’s nose.

Steve’s heart pounded. This wasn’t like anything he’d experienced in the war - not even on his USO tour. This was the highest strata of Nazi Germany, pretending that the war didn’t exist.

Steve kept his face downturned as he moved through the foyer, his eyes darting. He doubted his face would be recognised, but you never knew... 

The Time-GPS on his wrist beeped lowly and he quickly silenced it. It had been making noise for a while now - it thought he was lost, and was trying to pull him back to the Quantum Bridge. He’d have to go soon or risk the GPS taking over. 

As he moved through to the grand set of stairs, he overheard a snatch of German conversation spoken slowly enough for him to understand:

“_ The performance is scheduled to end in a few minutes, hopefully then we can go into the dinner hall.” _

Steve swallowed thickly and hurried up the stairs. At the top he wavered, turned left down a carpeted corridor, and began searching. He weaved through corridors with walls of mahogany and went up and down marble stairs, trying to figure out the German around him. The tips of his fingers tingled. 

Finally, he found a door marked _ NUR PERSONAL _ [ _ EMPLOYEES ONLY] _, and tentatively pushed it open. 

Song washed out from the open door.

Steve almost fell to his knees in the doorway. The voice rolling out of the space beyond was rich, haunting, powerful in its emotion and enticing in its melody. Most of all: the voice was more familiar to Steve than anything else in this strange place.

He moved forward, as if wading through a dream, until he navigated the darkened staff passageway and found a balcony looking down into the performance theatre.

_ Alice _. 

Tears pressed against Steve’s eyes the second he saw her. Alice stood alone in centre stage, wearing the sweeping white dress that he’d seen in photographs but never in person. He was a couple floors above her, right in the rafters, but he could still make out the details of her face: dark-painted lips curved in a smile, those green eyes roving over her audience before they closed at the peak of a note. 

Alice wrapped her fingers around the microphone stand and smiled down at her audience, as if she had a secret. 

Steve had never seen the Siren perform. But here she was. 

Alice was alive. Breathing.

After several heartstopping seconds Steve’s blurry vision shifted, taking in the entire theatre. Alice held the hundreds of people in her glittering audience spellbound. Some of them had been brought to tears. 

Steve’s hands flexed on the balcony edge. He wanted to leap down and - and - his fingers loosened. He knew enough to know that if he jumped down now in full view of everyone, he would start a whole new alternative reality, with potential world-ending consequences. He needed to wait. 

Steve stood frozen for the rest of the performance, his hands on the balcony edge and his whole body buzzing. He barely breathed. 

He’d forgotten how beautiful Alice sounded when she sang. He’d forgotten… so much. The way she moved; slow and sure, deliberate in every action. The unreadable facade she kept up even when pouring out her soul in song. His eyes traced the shape of her face, the fall of her pale hair - she turned slightly, and his heart leaped when he realised she had a hairpin tucked into the crown of her hair. _ That’s the present I gave her for Christmas. Just weeks ago for her. Years ago for me. _

Alice’s voice rippled, lilted, and then faded. Steve didn’t even realize that the audience had begun applauding until those below him got to his feet in a standing ovation. The sounds of applause and cheering rolled over him. 

The curtain fell, obscuring Alice.

Steve blinked. _ Hurry now. _ That was the last time that Alice had ever been officially seen in public. He glanced around, the murmur of the rousing audience below buzzing in his ears, and then took off running. He navigated the staff passageways, pausing every now and then to orient himself. Finally he reached the backstage area. 

But it was busy as hell down here: backstage staff milled around carrying microphone stands and cleaning equipment, musicians clumped in groups, putting away their instruments, and producers and organisers shouted instructions over the rush. A few people looked at Steve askance - in his fine clothes, he definitely wasn’t meant to be backstage.

He couldn’t see Alice’s white dress anywhere. 

Thinking fast, he pulled aside a black-clad stage attendant. “_ Ich soll der Sirene eine Nachricht vom Propagandaministerium überbringen,_” [ _ I am meant to deliver a message to the Siren from the Propaganda Department _ ] he said, hoping the attendant didn’t notice the way he stumbled over the words. _ “Wo ist ihre Garderobe? _ ” [ _ Where is her dressing room _?]

The frazzled-looking attendant reeled off a set of directions, barely glancing at Steve, before rushing away. Steve walked as fast as he dared for the stairs.

The building was a maze. Trying to translate and remember the instructions the attendant had given him, Steve felt the anxiety that had been rising in him ever since the curtain fell making his forehead and palms sweat. _ Okay… seventh floor, east wing… _his shoes squeaked on the floor as he practically jogged toward Alice’s dressing room.

Finally he saw a potted plant the attendant had told him to look out for and his heart leaped. He turned right at the end of the corridor and stopped in his tracks.

He’d found Alice’s dressing room. He could see the sign over the door which read _ Die Sirene. _But the door was open, and the corridor was absolutely packed with Gestapo officers.

They buzzed in and out of the dressing room like agitated hornets, and Steve’s eyes tracked to the far end of the corridor, where a crumpled Gestapo officer lay in a pool of blood, his colleagues trying to rouse him. The black uniforms seemed stark in the richly furnished corridor, and the fallen man’s scarlet blood shone dully.

“_Wo ist sie?_” [ _ Where is she _ ?] screamed a man who’d just stormed out of the dressing room - he wore the uniform and insignia of a commanding officer, and his face was red with rage. "_F__indet sie oder ihr werdet alle an die Front geschickt!” _ [ _ Find her or you’ll all be shipped to the front _!]

Having seen enough, Steve wheeled around and broke into a run. His skin crackled like lightning, even though Mjolnir was still in his bag, and his stomach churned. _ They’re after her. They ordered her capture, and she got away. _His mind reeled: this was more information than he’d had since waking up in the future. But these details weren’t long-past details in a cold case. 

Somewhere in this building, Alice was on the run. 

_ Where would you go? _Steve wondered even as he ran, his eyes darting. They must’ve almost caught her, if that crumpled Gestapo officer was any indication. He felt a burst of sudden pride - he’d always known that behind Alice’s placid and pleasant facade, she hid teeth.

He thought of downstairs; no way out for Alice through there, she’d get stopped before making the lobby. He racked his brain. _ Alice goes missing tonight. _Maybe they were going to catch her somewhere - they must. But how far would she get? He needed to find her before they spirited her away to some hidden prison. He needed to chase the chasers.

He heard shouting to his left and almost put a tear in the carpet with how quickly he turned. A quick dash down a warmly-lit corridor brought him out into a slightly larger passageway, with a handful of Gestapo officers crowded at the end of it. Steve stared as an older officer dragged himself along the floor to his colleagues, covered in blood. His eyes were white and wild.

“_ Sie… _ ” he coughed, his voice sounding ragged. “_Sie ist aufs Dach_,” [_She’s going to the roof _]. The man’s arms shook and he collapsed into the carpet.

Steve felt electricity zing through him. He sprinted down the corridor, dodging past the Gestapo and ignoring their shouts, burst through the far door into the stairwell - almost treading on another Gestapo officer lying crumpled and bloody, his eyes lifeless - and tore upwards. A few seconds later he heard the door bang open again below him and the shouts of the pursuing officers echoed up to him. 

He sprinted up the stairs, taking them four at a time, his heart pounding in his throat. He finally reached the door at the top and pushed it - only for it to resist the press of his hand. _ Locked? _He stepped back and then surged forward, slamming his shoulder to the edge of the door and sending it bursting open with a shattering sound. Steve spilled through onto the rooftop, glancing down at the fragments of a stiletto knife skittering across the concrete. Bloodstains dripped away across the roof.

When Steve looked up he caught a glimpse of the golden lights of the city stretching for miles around, the grey expanse of the roof, and-

A glimpse of a flickering white dress.

Steve realized what he was seeing instantly: Alice, running full pelt toward the edge of the roof a hundred feet away, her pale hair streaming behind her. 

Steve opened his mouth, arm outstretched - “_ Alice _!”

But in the same moment Alice set her foot on the stone barrier and leaped into the darkness_ . _

Steve’s heart seemed to slam to a halt in his chest.

He lurched forward, almost tripping over himself as he felt bile rise in his throat. He skidded to a halt at edge of the roof and looked down.

Nothing. Not even a ripple in the river below.

Steve cast his gaze around desperately, scanning the buildings across the river and the sliver of sidewalk below. Darkness and the glints of light reflecting off windows looked back. There was no sign of Alice’s stark white dress or her pale hair, not a shiver of movement. No sound. 

Steve paced, still staring. He’d _ just _seen her, how could she vanish into thin air?

He heard footsteps from the stairwell. Steve’s heart pounded from the chase, and his mind churned. He didn’t _ understand _.

Moments before the Gestapo thundered up the stairs onto the rooftop, Steve disappeared down another exit.

Steve searched for hours. As the Gestapo ran wild on the rooftop and throughout the building, Steve hunted in the shadows. He first went down to the river, examining its depth and looking for signs of a disturbance on either side. He checked the sidewalk, and the alleyways around the performance building, then scoped out the buildings on the other side of the river. They were perfectly undisturbed. 

Finally he returned to the rooftop. The Gestapo had reconvened in Alice’s dressing room (Steve had eavesdropped for a while, but they definitely hadn’t found her. They’d been talking about Otto’s body, and what they should do now. Steve suspected that they were already hatching a plan to cover the whole thing up). Steve reemerged onto the dark stillness of the rooftop and rechecked the area where Alice had jumped.

The shards of Alice’s stiletto knife (a Christmas gift from Bucky, Steve recalled numbly) that she’d used to jam the doorway had been removed. Now that Steve looked closer, he could see bloody footprints leading from the stairwell, growing fainter and fainter until they reached the edge of the roof. There was a small smudge of blood where Alice had set her foot on the stone barrier to leap off. 

Steve reached out to the smudge, laid his hand on it. He pulled his hand away to see Alice’s scarlet blood on his skin. _ You were here _ , he thought as he looked at it. _ I saw you. _

His breath left his chest in a fog of condensation in the cooling night air. 

He cast another glance over the scene beyond the rooftop: the dark river, the surrounding buildings. He saw a rooftop on the other side, slightly lower than the rest. She’d been aiming for it. But Steve had searched that entire building, and the streets around it. There’d been no sign of Alice - no bloodstains like up here. _ And I would have seen her there. I would have. _

The Time-GPS on Steve’s wrist beeped again, insistently. 

Steve took a stumbling step back, and a glint near the roof edge caught his eye. He reached down, frowning, to see a small hairpin resting in the shadow of the low stone barrier. The hairpin was sharp and glittering, adorned with blue and black jewels. 

Steve’s eyes squeezed shut as he picked up the hairpin. 

_ I gave this to you for Christmas just a few weeks ago - a hundred years ago. _ It had fallen from her hair as she jumped. 

_ You lost it. _

His eyes opened, taking in the softly glowing city of Berlin and the endless universe of stars stretching above him. His fist closed around the hairpin. 

_ I lost you._

* * *

Bucky stood with his hands in his pockets and his jaw clenched. Bruce and Sam were arguing: Steve hadn’t come back in the exact second he was supposed to.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know, something’s gone wrong with the timestamp,” Bruce said in a tight voice, hitting buttons and checking his screen. Natasha looked over his shoulder, frowning. “He should be here.”

Bucky watched the empty bridge. He hadn’t been 100% sure of Steve’s plan, but what…

“Well get him back!” Sam urged.

“I’m trying-”

“_ Get him the hell back _!”

“He said he’s trying,” Natasha snapped.

With a flash of light and a noise like a whining engine, a white and red clad figure suddenly appeared on the Quantum Bridge. _ Steve. _

Bucky let out the breath he’d been holding. But then he realized - Steve had been standing tall when he left, but had returned on his knees, his head bowed.

Sam and Natasha shouted in alarm and started toward the Bridge. 

Bucky got there first. He vaulted onto the platform and skidded to his knees beside his friend. “Steve!” He hit the button to retract Steve’s helmet and then grabbed his shoulders. Steve’s eyes were open, but his cheeks were wet. Bucky’s stomach dropped.

“What happened?” called Sam as he thundered up the stairs to the Bridge. “Did you get all the Stones back?”

Steve nodded numbly, his eyes fixed on the ground.

Bucky cast his eyes over his friend. “You went to find her, didn’t you.”

Steve looked up at that, his eyes red. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t…” his Quantum suit retracted, leaving him in a strange dark suit, and Steve unfolded his fist to reveal a glittering pin resting on his bloody palm.

Bucky looked down at the jewelled hair pin for a long moment, his jaw clenched.

Sam and Natasha fell still as they looked at Steve and Bucky kneeling together on the Quantum Bridge, staring at a single bloody hairpin. A breeze drifted over them, warm and scented by the green pines of the forest.

Bucky’s eyes burned. 

Steve drew in a shaking breath. “I couldn’t find her,” he said hoarsely. “I looked - for so long. I don’t… she was _ there _, and then she wasn’t. I don’t know what happened.”

Bucky nodded once, to show that he’d heard, then closed his eyes. It was the only way to keep back the tears.

* * *

Life went on.

They dismantled the Quantum Bridge, and everyone went back to the job of putting the world back together. Natasha helped Thor, the Guardians, and Wakanda with figuring out how to put out the fires that the end of the Decimation had started. 

Bruce decided to stay with Tony and his family for a while, both of them commiserating over their damaged arms and the lingering dreams of holding the all the power of the universe in a snap of their fingers.

Steve retired.

He’d told every detail of his sojourn in the past to Bucky, Sam, Natasha, and Bruce, and none of them could explain how Alice could have disappeared. Steve began to doubt his own eyes and memory; maybe he had missed her in his distraught searching after she’d jumped. Perhaps she’d made it to the rooftop on the other side and escaped into the night. Perhaps the Gestapo had caught her in the end. 

Steve doubted, and questioned himself, but he still _ knew _: when he’d looked over the edge of that rooftop, Alice was gone.

He drove himself near mad with the closeness and confusion of it. He spent days holed up in his apartment in Brooklyn, his hands in his hair and his eyes open and unseeing as he replayed those scenes in Berlin over and over again, searching for whatever he’d missed.

In the end it was Bucky, Sam, and Natasha that brought him out of it. They collected him from his house and brought him outside into the world, where people still rejoiced and cried and embraced each other in the streets. The sun shone down and warmed Steve’s face. 

They each bought him a drink and listened to him talk. They didn’t say anything in particular, but they brought Steve out of the endless cycle of thoughts and doubts.

When they finished their drinks, Steve set down his glass and announced his retirement. They nodded, as if they’d been expecting it. 

Steve gave the shield to Sam, making Bucky smile. He kept Mjolnir, since Thor had entrusted it to him, but he resolved to shove it under his bed and leave it alone.

So Steve went into retirement. Sam and Bucky continued in his stead, pushing back against the dangers that threatened the world.

Steve went home, and set about living. He put one foot in front of the other. He went to the park and drew, he watched movies, he thought about getting a dog. He caught up with Amaya, and also with Alice Johnson and Jilí, who’d both vanished in the Decimation. He didn’t tell them what he’d seen in Berlin. He couldn’t bring himself to keep relating how he had been just a hundred feet from Alice, and let her slip through his fingers.

Just as he had when he first arrived in the future, Steve felt aimless. But Alice… Alice would have wanted him to live. So he tried his best. 

* * *

_ New York Times _front page headline:

_ MUSICIAN AND SONGWRITER HALE HOLLOWAY VANISHES ON CAMERA IN NEW ORLEANS _ _  
_ _ EXPERTS QUESTION A ‘SECOND COMING’ OF THE DECIMATION_

* * *

A month after he went into retirement, Steve decided to pay a visit to Natasha’s new offices in New York. She’d set herself up in the Upper East Side in a former business complex with an operations room, training hangar, residential area and a lab, with a dozen staff. She wasn’t calling her work ‘Avenger work’, but she kept in close collaboration with Wakanda, the remaining active Avengers, and their friends offworld. Natasha monitored threats and handled all the things the Avengers used to: the things too dangerous and strange for police and armies.

She greeted him in the lobby in a sharp dark suit, her hair (almost completely red now) in a complicated updo. “Hey, stranger,” she called softly.

“Nat,” he smiled, and they pulled each other into a tight hug. 

When she pulled back, Nat chuckled under her breath. “I see you’ve grown the scruff back.”

Steve touched his beard self consciously. It had grown out since his journey to the past, almost by accident, though he was making sure to keep it better groomed than when he’d been on the run. “Yeah,” he said with a small smile. “And I really appreciate you calling it that.”

Nat shot him an appraising look. “It looks good.” Then she jerked her head. “Come on, I haven’t got all day.”

Natasha’s unnamed organisation had a pretty good setup. Steve smiled to himself as she showed him around her top-of-the-line equipment and facilities, introduced him to her staff (made up of former SHIELD and Avengers staff), and chatted about the various Avengers who’d already visited.

Sam and Bucky had gone legit, working for the government, but they’d told Natasha they could be ready at a moment's notice if she had anything for them. Natasha told Steve, smirking, that Doctor Strange was one of her ‘consultants’ and that most visitors from New Asgard visited her facility first, before heading to the embassy that had been set up in Manhattan. 

“You’ve got a good thing going here, Nat,” Steve acknowledged as she showed him into the operations room, which was packed with holographic screens and computer consoles. It was reminiscent of the old one at the Avengers Facility, but this one had more of a ‘cool office’ vibe than the sleek Stark Industries aesthetic. There was a neon green bean bag in the corner. “Has it been busy?”

“Definitely,” Natasha said with a wry smile. “Surprisingly, saving the world again has not put a stop to interdimensional crime. Clint’s been bugging me to go visit the farm, but there’s always something new. I’ve carved out a space to visit them next weekend, if we can get _ this _sorted out by then.” She nodded towards the largest screen at the head of the room, beneath which two analysts were hunched over their computers. Steve eyed the screen. It bore a headshot of a man, along with a map and a still of a CCTV video. 

“I’ve seen that guy,” Steve said. “That’s… Hale Holloway? He vanished, right?”

“Exactly,” Natasha said. “As much as the US Government keeps publicly announcing that it wants nothing to do with me or my organization here, they’ve sure been bugging me for help on this one.”

Steve cast another glance over the screen. He’d heard of the folk singer’s disappearance when it happened a few days ago, and had followed the furor over it in the days since. He hadn’t seen the CCTV footage in question, but he’d heard that Holloway had apparently vanished in the blink of an eye on camera. Everyone was terrified it meant a second Decimation, though seemingly no one else had gone missing. 

“Any ideas?” Steve asked as he eyed the man’s face. Holloway was in his mid 50s, with rugged features and long hair.

“Ruling out spontaneous combustion…?” Natasha murmured with a sigh. “None. Thor’s back on world for a visit so I called him in to see what he thought, since this looks… not of earthly origin. He should be here in a minute or two.”

Steve shot Natasha a _ look _. She’d been trying to get him to socialize more since he returned to the Quantum Bridge, and he suspected she’d invited Thor along mostly for that purpose. 

“Right,” he said wryly. “You need his expert advice.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Of course I do. Plus, he could have useful insight on the other issues we’ve got going on at the moment.”

“Such as…?”

“Well there’s the Infinity Cult,” Natasha shot back, referring to an alien group that had recently started launching attacks on Earth. Steve’s understanding was that the Cult attracted those who thought the Decimation was a _ good _ thing, and encouraged them to ‘put things right’ now that the Decimation had been reversed. “They keep popping up, trying to kill people. We’ve been able to mostly stop them so far, but I’m not sure what their end goal is. They’re definitely mad at _ us _, so maybe watch your back. Tony’s put his house on lockdown.”

Steve arched an eyebrow. “Nat, you and I both know that the Infinity Cult is hardly a massively organised group. They fact they got it together enough to even travel to Earth is an achievement. I give you two weeks, three tops, before you put a stop to them.”

“Well aren’t you taking a keen interest for a supposedly retired person,” she challenged, eyes glinting.

Steve rolled his eyes. Their conversation turned to the rebuilding and re-assimilating efforts in the city, which Steve had been a part of. 

Nat’s holographic watch lit up and she glanced down, tapped a button, and moments later the operations room doors slid open to reveal Thor. 

Thor looked suntanned and happy, still on the larger side with his thick beard and long hair, but seeming much more comfortable in his own skin. He wore sunglasses, pushed up into his intricately braided hair, and an Asgardian fabric tunic with metal inlays. 

“My friends!” he exclaimed, and practically jogged into the room to sweep both Steve and Nat into a hug. A few of the analysts looked over with raised eyebrows.

Steve patted Thor’s back. “Hey, pal. How’s space?”

“Space is… always interesting,” Thor said as he pulled back, looking over them both. “And the Guardians are…” his lips quirked. “Definitely crazy.”

“So you must get on well with them then,” Natasha teased. “Thanks for coming.”

“Any time,” Thor smiled, waving her off. “So, what’s this disappearance you want to ask me about?”

Natasha stepped back and nodded over at the main holoscreen. “Hale Holloway, folk singer. Happened four days ago. Have you seen the footage?”

Thor scratched his beard. “No, I was offworld until yesterday, and in New Asgard they’ve been having a fishing competition so they’re not really focused on much else.” Seeing their bemused glances, he shrugged. “Korg was in the lead when I left.”

“Okay, so…” Natasha turned to make eye contact with one of her analysts. “Saida, would you play the footage?”

The dark-haired analyst nodded and leaned over to another desk to hit a couple of buttons. On the main screen, the headshot of Holloway gave way to a video clip.

As the footage of a quiet New Orleans street flickered to life before him, Steve crossed his arms and focused. This would be the first time he’d seen the footage outside of stills.

Like most CCTV footage the video wasn’t smooth, running at about 15 frames per second, but they could see Holloway as he walked into shot on the sidewalk. There were a couple of other people in frame too, but they were facing the other direction. Holloway was looking down at his phone as he walked.

In the ops room, they watched in silence as Holloway made it to about midway on the screen before-

“Whoah!”

There’d been a sudden burst of light around Holloway’s body, completely throwing off the camera exposure, before vanishing as abruptly as it had come. And in its wake, they saw that Holloway had also vanished.

Steve’s eyebrows rose. 

Natasha glanced at Thor. “Thoughts? We were thinking that it kind of looks like when we were using the Quantum Bridge to get around, so we had the theory that maybe we should look into his past to see if he’s been messing with Pym tech, but-”

Thor was frowning, his eyes on the CCTV footage, which now showed an empty street. “Play it again?”

Nat paused for a moment, her eyes on Thor, before nodding and instructing Saida to replay the tape on reduced speed.

Once more they watched Holloway walk down the sidewalk, only this time in slow motion. He reached the middle of the frame again, and Steve leaned forward.

Now that it was slowed down and Steve knew what to expect, he could see that the light appeared _ above _Holloway, seeming to tendril out and down like an unfurling snare. The footage was too grainy for Steve to really make out much more than that. It had happened all within less than a second in real time, but watching it in slow motion like this made Steve feel unsettled.

Thor’s hand rose to stroke his beard, and when Steve turned to look at him he noticed a darkness in his eyes.

“You know what this is,” Natasha realized, motioning for Saida to stop the tape.

Thor’s eyes didn’t leave the frozen burst of light on screen. “This is Bragi.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So things get a little more AU at the end of Endgame , as you can see! And as for what happens next… we’ll have to wait until next week to find out!


	57. Chapter Forty Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise early update! Thank you thank you thank you to lea_sommerregen (again) for being so patient and fixing my butchered German for me. I really couldn't ask for better readers, you guys. All of you xx

"What the hell is a Bragi?"

The next day, Steve furrowed his brow as Sam vocalised the exact same question he had asked Thor yesterday. Thor had explained briefly to him and Natasha yesterday, but today Natasha had called in the troops to her ops room. Sam and Bucky stood side by side in uniform by the holoscreens, confusion in their expressions, Wanda and Vision (who'd been restored to life with a combination of the Stones and Wanda's powers) sat with the analysts, the Guardians (who'd returned to pick Thor up) were packed in around one of the planning tables, and Bruce was frowning at Thor.

Natasha and Steve stood a few feet away from Thor and from Valkyrie, who had flown in yesterday night.

This was everyone who could come in at short notice. Steve, though he wasn't technically on duty, had stayed for this meeting as he didn't fully understand it all yet. They'd gone over the CCTV footage again, and Thor had once again made his pronouncement.

Thor, his face grave, drew in a breath. "_Bragi_ is a who. An ancient Asgardian, as old as my father, though he was cast out centuries ago. He is the god of skaldship, which - you must understand, it means… sort of poetry, sort of… it's the very essence of music. It's hard to explain." He shrugged. "He has a harp."

Sam's brow furrowed even more.

"He was the best _skald_ the realms have ever seen," Valkyrie chimed in. "Not only a gifted performer himself, but a sponsor and patron of the most talented _skalds _the realms over. It was his task to nurture music and poetry, to let it flourish. He was also a talented seiðr practitioner - a sorcerer, like Loki."

Gamora jutted her chin out. "And what makes you think this… music god has anything to do with _that_?" She pointed a green finger at the CCTV footage.

Thor scratched his head. "Okay, look. I was only a child when this happened, so I can't be truly sure - and the Valkyries had been defeated before all this happened - but… Bragi had a wife, Iðunn: the goddess of youth, his partner in all things. She used to grow these golden apples which Asgardians could eat for youth, health, and longevity. I shared one with my mother once, they were very nice." Thor sensed his audience growing impatient, and shook his head. "Anyway. Iðunn died, you see, and Bragi… well, he went a bit mad."

"A bit mad?" Wanda asked.

"Alright, _very _mad," Thor clarified. Valkyrie listened with a heavy brow. "I was protected from a lot of it, but I could tell my parents were concerned - not only did we not have Iðunn's apples any more, but Bragi was deep in grief. He turned inward. He stopped performing odes for fallen warriors to help them pass into Valhalla, stopped performing at court, stopped sponsoring other _skalds_ \- musicians - in the nine realms. He was obsessed with death, and afraid of it. And then…" a shadow crossed Thor's face. "I was in court one evening at a banquet for the solstice. When all of a sudden, the young _Vanir _musician performing for the court vanished in a flash of golden light."

Thor turned to the frozen still of Holloway's disappearance, his brow heavy. "I've never forgotten it."

Silence fell in the room as they all tried to comprehend this.

Bucky spoke first. "What happened?"

Thor drew in a breath. "My father knew instantly that Bragi had gone too far. He sent soldiers after him in his home in the apple groves. Bragi fought them, and killed many before they finally broke through. They made him free his captured singer, but in the confusion Bragi fled." Thor turned to face them all. "Stripped of his connection to Asgard and outcast into the darkest reaches of the nine realms, my father believed Bragi powerless and lost, and let him be." His brow lowered. "I am beginning to think that was a mistake."

Quill leaned back in his chair. "So what, you think he… kidnapped this Holloway guy? For what?"

"I don't know," Thor sighed. "All I know is that Bragi… took notice of talented _skalds _across the realms. When Valkyrie knew him," he tipped his head toward the armored warrior to his side, "that meant that he sought them out and supported them, helping their gifts flourish. But after he lost Iðunn… he turned to obsession and corruption. I cannot explain his mind, only that this kind of disappearance" - he nodded again at the holoscreen - "reminds me of him."

Natasha cleared her throat, her eyes on the gathered Avengers. "It's the best lead we have yet, even if it is a bit out there." She looked over to her analysts. "Daisuke, would you tell everyone what you told me this morning?"

A mid-thirties analyst stood up, glancing nervously around at them all, and cleared his throat. He lifted a few sheets of paper. "I've been experimenting with our search parameters, and I found a report from during the Decimation. There was a violinist reported missing around about the same date as the Decimation, which naturally got buried at the time. His wife reported that he vanished" - he checked his notes - "'in a gold flash'. It was written off as being part of the Decimation, but here's the thing: that guy never came back. I thought I'd… mention it."

"Good," Natasha said with an approving nod, and the analyst collapsed into his seat. "Thank you."

Bruce pushed his glasses up his nose and spoke for the first time: "So what, you think it's related?"

Natasha shrugged. "I don't know. This is all… a little out of my wheelhouse. But I think it's relevant. And I _definitely _think we need to look into this."

"How do we even find this Bragi guy?" Sam asked.

Thor put his hands on his hips. "I don't know. I looked for him when I was searching for the scattered Asgardians after the Decimation, but I met with an acquaintance of his who told me not to bother him. Perhaps I could chase down that thread again." He scratched his beard. "I'll begin searching."

"Well we're searching with you," Sam said resolutely. "If this guy is snapping up people on earth, we need to stick with this."

"I'm coming too," Wanda said, standing.

Valkyrie twisted her spear in her hands. "New Asgard will go on without me for a little while. Lost as he may be, Bragi is still Asgardian."

"I'll help manage the search from here," Bruce added, nodding to Nat.

Thor nodded and looked to the Guardians. "We may need your ship."

Rocket rolled his eyes. "You could at least _pretend _to ask." But a few moments later, after sharing a few glances with the other Guardians, he shrugged. "Fine."

They began preparations, talking about flight paths and places they could search, and Natasha turned to Steve.

"How about you?" she asked.

Steve smiled weakly. "I'm retired," he reminded her. "But if you guys need help with anything, let me know. Keep me updated."

"Of course," she murmured. She cocked her head and opened her mouth, as if to say something else, before shutting it again. She smiled. "I'll give you a call soon."

* * *

Steve went back to his quiet life, but he couldn't help but keep track of the investigation into Hale Holloway's disappearance. It started with Thor, Valkyrie, and the others going on an expedition into space to learn more about where Bragi might have gone. On Earth, others joined: Hope Van Dyne, Clint, Rhodey, Doctor Strange, and Princess Shuri, each offering their individual expertise or offering to join the search party. Thor's team ran into Carol on Xandar, and she offered to make enquiries through her own connections.

Steve got updates from Natasha about everything they learned: Thor's first lead didn't actually know where Bragi might be, but knew others who might. So those on the Guardians' ship began travelling from star system to star system, following a centuries-old tale of grief.

Two weeks into the search, Natasha called Steve to tell him (in a very disgruntled tone) that it turned out Loki had somehow survived, and had been found by Thor in Svartalfheim. "There was apparently a lot of fighting, and crying," Natasha told him, "But Loki's agreed to help Thor search for Bragi. We could really use his help on the magic side of things."

As the others searched the Nine Realms, on earth Natasha and her analysts had discovered a worrying trend: there were tales of other musicians who'd disappeared following the Decimation with reports describing a sudden golden light. None of them had returned.

Finally, Steve got the call:

"One of their leads told them that Bragi hid himself in a 'pocket dimension'," Natasha told him, sounding exhausted. "And Loki thinks he's found a way to get into it. They're coming back to Earth tomorrow to prepare and plan."

"I'll be there," Steve told her, as he stood in the middle of his living room.

"Oh, I didn't - you don't have to-"

"I know how big this has become, Nat, and pretty much everyone else is involved by now. I'll be there."

"Okay then. See you tomorrow."

* * *

They gathered on the grounds of the old Avengers Facility, which was still rubble-strewn and scorched, though had been cleaned up a lot since the battle against Thanos's forces. Natasha's office spaces in Manhattan could have fit everyone but she wanted to keep their joining of forces a secret, and she also didn't have a landing pad big enough for the Guardians' spaceship.

Steve showed up on his bike and instantly realized he was late. Everyone else had already arrived, gathering inside the makeshift operations centre that had been set up in an army-style command tent by the lake. He could see the Guardians' ship, the _Benatar,_ parked a little further toward the forest, and a few other cars and bikes belonging to others. Tony's sleek Audi was parked haphazardly in the grass.

As Steve turned off his bike he heard voices from the tent. A cool breeze blew off the lake, rustling through the dry fallen leaves on the ground. The forest had turned brown and gold, and in a month Steve knew the branches would be bare. He drew in a long breath, steeling himself.

When he strode into the tent a moment later, he had to take a second to adjust to the cacophony inside.

The tent was packed with Avengers: Thor's search team, Natasha's research team from Manhattan, and several others who had theoretically gone their own way since the battle with Thanos. He spotted the sharp-eyed Loki at the far end of the tent with Thor, Valkyrie and Bruce, wearing a dark tunic. Steve's stomach twisted in unease, but then Loki said something that made Bruce laugh, and the feeling unravelled. Carol, standing with her arms folded over her chest, rolled her eyes at them.

The tent was loud with dozens of conversations: Strange and Wanda were in the middle of a heated conversation over what looked like a glowing astral chart a few feet away, Princess Shuri and her two Dora Milaje guards listened with bemused expressions as several of the Guardians described the firepower they'd brought along for the mission, Vision and Tony flicked through piles of notes stacked haphazardly on a planning table, and Bucky and Sam sat down with their feet up, seemingly content to wait for the individual discussions to settle down. Though it did look like they were squabbling. Hope Van Dyne and Clint were reviewing a list of confirmed missing musicians (Clint cast the occasional glance at Loki, but didn't seem outwardly furious. Natasha had told Steve that Clint and Loki had had a 'reckoning', though he didn't know the details).

"I swear half of them are here because they're bored," came Nat's voice from Steve's right, almost making him jump.

He turned to face her. "Well, maybe you'll have some new recruits for your organisation when all this is over."

Nat eyed him. "Why are you here, Steve?"

He opened his mouth, not quite sure what he was going to say, when suddenly Thor's voice rose above the noise in the tent.

"Alright, settle down!" he called, and everyone looked up. Thor's eyes roamed across the room until he spotted Steve, and he waved. Steve nodded in greeting and shuffled so he was towards the back of the tent, watching. "You see before you our strike team!" He gestured around at the colorful group in the tent, then set his hands on his hips. "So, we all… we all know the plan?" He raised his eyebrows hopefully.

There was a round of nodding and muttered assent, but Rocket spoke: "Yeah. Get on the ship, fly to the hidden pocket dimension-"

"It's actually a little more complicated than that," said Bruce with a pained expression on his face.

Rocket ignored him. "- kick the god's ass, get the Terrans back to Terra."

That kicked off a wave of additions and corrections from both the science crew and those who'd been on the search, but Thor just shrugged.

"That's the gist of it," he agreed. "Loki, Bruce, and Princess Shuri," he nodded to each of them in turn, "Have calculated our entry path, but we must be careful. We might know _where _Bragi is, but we know little else." The tent fell silent. "Bragi has been alone for centuries," Thor told them. "He was mad when he left, and I know not what he has become now. We must be prepared for anything."

The silence in the tent grew heavy. Steve saw a few people exchanging glances - this wasn't the first time many of them had come up against a mad alien, so they knew they were heading into the unknown. They'd all been so focused on finding Bragi that no one had really decided what to do when they found him.

Steve straightened his shoulders. "I'm coming too."

Every head in the tent turned to stare at him. He got a general impression of confusion, raised eyebrows, and concern, but kept his eyes fixed on Thor, who seemed to understand.

"Are you sure, Steve?" asked Nat, her brow lowered. "You got out for a reason."

"I always said that if something big came up I'd step back into the fight. Same as Tony." He nodded over at Tony, who sat next to Rhodey with his burned and broken arm in a vibranium exoskeleton, looking over readings for the pocket dimension entry point. Tony met his eyes and nodded.

Taking in another breath, Steve leaned down and reached into the bag he'd brought with him. When he straightened again, he held Mjolnir firmly in his hand. "I'm in."

* * *

They barely all fit on the _Benatar. _But after some reshuffling and mild arguing, they were all aboard - even Carol, since she had to be inside the ship for Loki, Bruce, and Shuri's interdimensional portal to work.

Speaking of which…

"Are we sure this is going to work?" Steve murmured to Tony, who wore his Iron Man armor. Steve himself had changed into the dark uniform he'd worn to return the Stones.

Tony looked up from where he'd been going over the readings, and glanced at Steve. "What? Oh, yeah. I mean, probably." Then he glanced back down.

"Scientists," Bucky muttered, sounding resigned to his fate. He and Steve shared a glance.

"Alright, you all remember the rules!" Rocket shouted as he and Nebula began powering up the engines. "No vomiting, complaining, or damaging the ship, or I eject you into the vacuum of space!"

And with that the _Benatar _rumbled to life, rose into the air, and shot off beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

* * *

Their journey was short. Steve didn't know the science behind it all, but the way Bruce had explained it, Bragi's dimension wasn't in a specific _place_, but to get there you had to have a certain velocity, and frequency, and then do something with dark matter to open a portal…

Yeah, he didn't know. He was just hoping they wouldn't all be torn to shreds or obliterated in a black hole. But his madcap scientist friends had got him this far.

Still, when Bruce announced "Launching now!" and hit the big red button on the newly-built panel before him, Steve gripped his armrests so hard that the metal bent. He hoped Rocket didn't notice.

But then the star-speckled darkness through the front window blazed electric white, making everyone in the cockpit cry out in surprise. The _Benatar _shivered as if it had been doused in cold water, then lurched and shook like it was being pelted with rocks. The light grew brighter, brighter, searing Steve's retinas, and Steve saw Tony's fingers dancing over the holoscreen before him as if he were strumming an instrument, and then -

With a final shudder the _Benatar_ fell still, and the light died.

After the shaky, bumpy ride they were suddenly sailing smoothly, in complete silence. The sudden darkness made spots dance across Steve's vision.

Bruce let out a breath. "Made it," he sighed.

Everyone in the cockpit leaned forward.

The world beyond was dark. Pitch blackness stretched above and below them. There were no stars. Steve could hear the _Benatar_'s engines running, but for all he knew they could be completely still in the air, floating in darkness.

"Heading down," Rocket said, his voice low. Steve suddenly realised that those at the very front of the cockpit were looking _downwards, _staring at something Steve couldn't see_._

Rocket brought down the _Benatar_, piloting hesitantly, checking his computer readouts. Gamora looked over his shoulder.

"This place is like… nothing I've ever seen," she said, sounding unnerved.

Finally, they touched down. On what, Steve wasn't sure, because it looked just as pitch black as the air they'd been flying through. But he wasn't focused on that, because he could suddenly see what the others had been looking at.

Ahead of them lay a lone source of light, a distant gold beacon like the centre of a star system. Steve couldn't make out any details other than the light, but he knew instantly that this is what they had come to find. The light reflected in the eyes of every Avenger on board the _Benatar._

Tony looked from the golden light to his holoscreen. "Atmosphere check complete. The air should be breathable and non-toxic."

For a long moment, no one replied.

Steve wasn't the leader of this mission - wasn't even technically an Avenger any more, but he knew it was his time to speak.

"Let's move out," he murmured.

Thor, Loki, Valkyrie, and Carol, the most durable members of the team, were first to leave the _Benatar. _When they made it to the bottom of the ramp and gave a thumbs up, Steve and the others followed.

Steve strode down the loading ramp, unnerved by the pitch blackness stretching on for seemingly miles and miles. It messed with his perception. But the air felt… like air, if a little thinner than earth's atmosphere. He glanced back at the _Benatar_, its electric lights comforting him, before he reached the end of the ramp.

He hesitated a moment before stepping out onto the darkness. He could see Loki, Thor, Valkyrie, and Carol standing on a seemingly flat surface just a few feet away, but it still took a bit of willpower to make himself step out onto nothing but blackness.

Finally he did, and his boot rested on… it almost felt like sand, or soil: dark and shifting, giving slightly beneath his feet and yet supporting him. He took a few more steps, tense.

When he'd reached the others Steve drew in a deep breath. The air smelled like ozone and something rich, earthy. He blinked, and then realized that he could hear… music.

"Can you hear that?" he heard Wanda whisper to Vision. Vision nodded silently, his head slightly cocked.

Standing in darkness, illuminated only by the white lights of the _Benatar _and the distant golden beacon, the Avengers listened to the strangest song they had ever heard. It was faint, ethereal, more like the sound of a breeze shifting through tree leaves than any kind of music Steve knew of. There were voices, indistinguishable, and instruments, though he couldn't name them. The song seemed to move through the darkness, permeating out into nothingness. It shifted over Steve's skin, sending goosebumps rising along his arms.

This wasn't a song that any of them could sing along to or replicate. The music was like an element: unquestionable and unstoppable, a very part of the air. And yet still so faint, just brushing against their ears and on the edge of their senses.

"Let's get moving," said Thor, his clear voice strange after however many moments they had all spent listening to the impossible song.

Carol led them, her hands glowing by her sides and her strides sure. They all followed. Steve fell into step beside Sam and Bucky, who clutched their weapons nervously. The golden light gleamed in their eyes.

No one spoke.

They walked for several minutes, the golden beacon seeming to grow larger as they approached, though it was nearly impossible to judge distance in this place. The light seemed to bloom, taking up more and more space, rising above them and separating, becoming something more complicated than a single unified light. Steve noticed that the ground beneath their feet had become slightly uneven and bumpy, as if there were ropes beneath the surface. One of the Dora Milaje stumbled.

"They're _roots_," Carol said, her voice carrying in the strange air. And Steve, feeling the uneven shape of something long and tubular under his boot, realized that she was right.

He looked up, and suddenly the golden light resolved itself. His mouth dropped open.

They were walking toward an enormous golden tree. But the tree itself wasn't gold, Steve realized: now that they were close enough he could make out a massive black trunk, darker than ebony, as thick as a skyscraper, with arching dark branches that soared up into the black sky. The branches crisscrossed overhead, their color incrementally lighter than the pitch blackness beyond. Dark leaves shifted in the canopy, rustling together.

And on the branches was... they looked like orbs the size of beach balls, glowing gold so brightly that their light was almost blinding. They hung from the tree's branches on glowing strands, like… like fruit.

The Avengers had found themselves under the reach of the tree's branches almost without realizing, each of them staring up at the canopy of gold.

The song didn't tantalise the edge of the senses here. The air was thick with music like humidity in the middle of a New York summer, thick like smoke in a speakeasy. The music was so beautiful it felt overwhelming, hitting Steve in a rush: every song that had brought tears to his eyes or broken his heart, amplified a hundredfold and worming itself into his very soul. Voices weaved with strings, piano, woodwind, a symphony of music.

Steve drew in a shaky breath and felt himself _breathe _the song, felt it clogging his throat and lungs like honey. His head spun.

They had all realised what they were looking at by now. Silently, the Avengers continued walking toward the massive trunk of the tree, having to be careful not to trip over the roots. Steve saw Groot reach out with one leafy limb and stroke a dark root, his eyes curious. The tree seemed to stretch tall above them, it's dark branches draping over the sky, and the glowing orbs drew their eyes, illuminating their faces gold.

Steve knew that the music was emanating from the tree. From the orbs.

"Look," someone whispered, almost inaudible over the music, and Steve dragged his eyes down from the dark branches to the base of the tree.

As one, the Avengers stopped walking.

There was a grey figure amongst the roots. At first Steve thought it was a corpse: an emaciated, skeletal corpse. But then he saw its chest rise and fall.

The figure was a tall, rail-thin, ancient-looking man lying tangled amongst the roots, his limbs sprawled and his head tipped backwards, looking up at the branches. He looked utterly wretched: his long, straggly grey hair and beard had grown over his bare chest, his nails were long and yellowed, and the only clothing he wore was a dirty, torn tunic reminiscent of the fashions Steve had seen in New Asgard.

Without speaking, the Avengers broke apart: some of them hanging back, providing cover, others shifting apart to break up the single target they posed, and a few hesitantly drawing closer to the ancient figure in the tree roots. Steve strode forward behind Thor.

The figure did not move as they approached. He simply stared upward, his chest rising and falling maybe once a minute. Steve saw that the tree had actually grown over him, thin roots twining around his wrists and inching over his concave chest. When Steve climbed over a root he finally saw the man's eyes: they were sunken in his face, and milky white. _He's blind._

"It's like Yggdrasil," he heard Loki murmur to Thor, gesturing to the tree. "A broken mockery of it."

Thor's face looked as if it had been carved out of stone. He climbed another root, as thick and round as a car, and then planted his feet and drew himself tall.

"_Bragi_," he called, with the command of a king.

From his vantage point on a different root, Steve saw the sprawled old man's ears twitch. And suddenly, faster than Steve would have thought possible, Bragi's hand broke free of the twining roots and flicked up, sending a blast of golden light searing across the darkness toward Thor.

Tony cried out in alarm and Thor raised his axe, but Sam was fastest: he dove out of the blackness and deflected the golden blast with his shield, sending it careening out into the endless darkness.

Everyone's weapons went up. Sitting in the roots, Bragi's eyes glowed gold.

Thor lifted his axe. "Bragi, I am Thor Odinson" - the old man lurched out of the roots and onto his gnarled feet, hands flicking as he sent four more scorching bolts of light flying toward Thor - "of _Asgard_, and I command you-" a bolt of light caught Thor in the chest, sending him spinning away and into a chasm between two roots.

Everyone fired. Bragi, surprisingly fast again, span away into the roots like a spider. Sam swooped, firing down at him, then had to careen away when a crackling golden bolt nearly speared through his wing. Shuri and her guard ran forward, shouting, only to be forced to dive behind the cover of a root as more searing gold light rained down on them.

Steve ran up the side of a root and jumped, lifting Mjolnir in the same moment, before he brought down an electric blue bolt of lightning on the space Bragi had disappeared into. The bolt _cracked_ through the dark roots.

Bragi sprang on top of a nearby root, his face contorted and his teeth bared in a hiss. "_**Not the tree**_!" he screamed, in a voice that made Steve's brain feel as if it was vibrating. He was so thrown off by the alien cadence of Bragi's voice that he nearly didn't see the surge of golden light the emaciated old man launched at him.

"Look out!" Bucky shouted, firing a semiautomatic round at Bragi to distract him.

Steve dove just in time, heart pounding, dodging over three ropey roots and getting the massive trunk of the tree between himself and the god. As he did, he spotted something deep in the roots that he hadn't seen before: a massive golden harp lying in three pieces. It was hard to tell in this strange place, but it looked as if the harp hadn't been touched in a long time. Roots had grown through and around it, as if the tree were absorbing it.

A blast erupted, drowning out the ever-present music, and the entire tree shuddered. This was followed by another resonant, earsplitting scream from Bragi. His voice had power, and through the pain and grief in it Steve could hear how it might have once borne song.

Avengers ran and flew around the tree, trying to pin down the leaping, dodging shadow that screamed at them. Bolts of golden light seared through the air, narrowly missing them: Iron Man, War Machine, Carol, Sam, Quill, Wanda and Vision soared around the trunk like a flock of birds, and the rest of them jumped and weaved around the roots. Bolts of magic began flying in the air: Wanda's red light, Strange's golden symbols, and even Loki's green sorcery. Rounds from a dozen different kinds of weapons lit up the darkness.

"Bragi, look at what you have become!" Valkyrie shouted, and her spear hurtled past like a streak of silver light. Steve caught a glimpse of Bragi, his golden eyes flashing, before he disappeared behind another root. "This is not a place worthy of a _skald_, and would you fight your last remaining kin?"

"_**You are no kin of mine!**_" came that awful voice again, and Steve flinched. Bragi flitted along the lower branches of the tree now, leaping and firing golden bolts. "_**My kin is gone, my love is gone, my-**_" he broke off, and Steve saw him tumbling out of the branches as if someone had hit him. Steve aimed another lightning bolt, which crackled past and dissipated into the darkness.

"Will somebody grab this guy already?" called Tony in the comms, and Steve saw him flying past, trailing smoke from a glowing golden burn on the foot of his armor.

A golden comet seared past Steve's ear, sending him staggering into the tree trunk, and when he got his footing under him he looked up just as a swirl of Wanda's red power jetted out and caught at Bragi's hand as he fired on Sam, stalling him. The power twisted, condensed, and lifted Bragi six feet in the air as he shrieked and kicked.

"Now!" Loki called, and a flicker of green power swirled into life at Bragi's ankles, shackling him.

A second later Thor dropped out of the branches, his eyes flickering electric blue, seized Bragi by his remaining shred of clothing and brought him to the ground. Steve let out a breath and jogged down his tree root.

Thor did not let go of Bragi. Grabbing fistfuls of his filthy tunic, he held Bragi a few feet above the ground so his shackled feet dangled. "What have you become, Bragi?" he shouted, eyes still flickering. "What have you done?"

"_**Leave!**_" Bragi shrieked back, his eyes still glowing. He scrabbled at Thor's arms with those yellowed fingernails and his bone-thin limbs jerked as he tried to wriggle free. "_**Leave me! Leave the tree! Leave the song!**_"

The Avengers slowly approached, eyeing Bragi and Thor warily. Steve wondered how long it had been since Bragi had ever seen, let alone spoken to another person.

Thor shook Bragi. "Look at these people you've taken, Bragi!" he shouted, gesturing up at the tree branches, and Steve's stomach sank as he fully comprehended just what they were looking at. Each of those golden orbs… his eyes turned upwards. Music still twisted and condensed in the air. Bragi had turned people into _apples_, a mockery of whatever his reality in Asgard had been.

Thor kept shouting: "You used to nurture _skalds _for the betterment of their world, not steal them away for your own selfish gain! These people have people who love them, who you stole them away from!" Thor held Bragi at a distance, his lip curling. "What would Iðunn say?"

Bragi stalled, his face furious and body shaking, before everything in him seemed to crumple. His limbs dropped as if all life had left them, the faint golden glow around his eyes and hands blinked out, and a moment later tears began to spill from his milky white eyes.

Steve reached the bottom of his tree root and stood with the others, silently watching. Mjolnir was a steady weight in his hand.

As Bragi began to weep, Thor dropped him, disgusted, and the ancient man crumpled to the ground, bowed over his folded knees with his forehead against the roots of his tree. His chest shuddered as he began sobbing.

The Avengers stood in a loose circle around the scene, panting and wiping away sweat; some had been seared by the golden light, but none too badly. Now that relative silence had fallen again, the music in the air seemed deafening. Steve could hear individual voices and instruments weaving through it all.

Bucky came to stand by Steve. "Alright?" he panted. Steve nodded, ran an eye over his team, and then turned back to the pitiful scene amongst the dark tree roots.

Thor stared down at the crumpled, weeping Bragi with a thunderous look on his face. But Loki had begun pacing, his face turned up to the branches.

"How did you do this?" Loki asked.

Bragi's bony chest heaved. "_**I watch their lives… I listen. I… I save them-**_"

Thor's face contorted with fury again, but Loki held out a hand to stop whatever he was about to do.

"These are all people?" Tony asked, and his faceplate slid back so he could peer up at the golden orbs again. "How do we… get them out?"

Steve looked to Thor for an answer to that one, but he suddenly seemed uncertain.

"Let's find out," Carol said, and kicked off the ground and into the air, her hands glowing. She flew up into the branches, found the closest golden apple, and reached out - before snatching her hand away with a yelp.

"A protection enchantment, most likely," Loki posited.

Steve saw a duller orange light flicker through the branches, and looked down to see Doctor Strange forming runes with his fingers, his eyes on the golden fruit. A moment later his hands dropped. "I concur," he said, glancing at Loki briefly. "I'm not able to break the protections."

Loki began pacing again, his face bathed in gold. "The fruit are sustained by the tree, and tied to it, kept in immortal suspension. Only song bleeds through." He sounded _fascinated. _Loki glanced at the crumpled, weeping Bragi, and then back up. "He must have stolen the last remnants of Iðunn's youth magic and entwined it with his own to create this place."

"So, what do we do?" Steve asked, drumming his fingers on Mjolnir's hilt. "Cut down the tree?"

"No, that would break the whole spell," Wanda cut in before Loki or Strange could. "It would kill them." Her eyes glimmered scarlet. "I can feel them. They are tied to the tree."

"I feel them too," whispered Mantis, her antennae glowing.

"So many of them," Natasha said, her eyes darting from golden orb to golden orb. "There are way more here than the number of people we've found reported missing during the Decimation."

Bragi heaved a sob at the word. "_**They went out!**_" he cried, and Steve felt his mind shiver again. "_**I was listening, and half of them faded to nothingness.**_"

"That was the Decimation," explained Shuri, her voice almost gentle. "Thanos wiped away half of the universe. It must have impacted your spell, too."

"Half of all living beings," Clint echoed.

"_**I had to replace them-**_"

"Thus the sudden spate of missing musicians," Rhodey said disgustedly.

Natasha strode past Steve, still looking up. "But if he had… _fruit_ before the Decimation, then…" she turned on the spot, eyeing the golden fruit. "He could have been doing this for decades. Centuries."

The gravity of that hit them all, and they fell silent. Song kept sifting through the air, seeping into their minds and bodies. Bragi slumped further onto the ground, sniffling and wailing softly.

As Steve stared up at the arching branches with their golden fruit, a sudden terrible idea occurred to him.

He turned toward the shrivelled god on the ground. "Did you take a woman named Alice Moser?"

Everyone looked up at him, some surprised and some pitying. Natasha's face filled with sorrow as if she'd been waiting for him to say that, and Bucky's eyes went wide and he started scrutinising the golden orbs in the branches, as if he could spot her.

Bragi peeked up, his sightless white eyes turned in Steve's direction. "_**I do not remember them by their names. Only their music.**_"

Steve closed his eyes and strained to hear, letting the music wash over him and through him, trying to pick an individual voice out of the endless swelling song. A terrified hope shivered in his chest, threatening to crack his heart. The closer he listened to the song the more it seemed to pull at him. He understood the urge to lie at the foot of the tree and let the dark roots grow over him.

He could feel the others looking at him, concerned, and he realized he had to quash this hope. It was rising in him, filling his lungs like water, and he knew it would drown him if he let it linger. Besides, it was implausible. Impossible, even.

So he pressed it down. He opened his eyes, deafened his ears to the song. He had a job to do.

"So how do we get them back?" he heard Tony prompt.

Loki folded his fingers together. "_He _has to do it."

As one, they all turned to Bragi. The god sat up a little, shaking, his face twitching.

"Send them back," Carol said flatly. Her fists crackled with photon energy.

"_**It's not so easy**_," Bragi said. The wailing grief had left his voice, making Steve's hackles rise. Bragi's voice was almost _crooning. _"_**For most of them, their time has passed them by. Let me keep them here, invaders. The world is not theirs any more, they are safe with me-**_"

"They're not yours to keep, Bragi," Nebula interrupted.

Bragi's face contorted and his hands and eyes flashed gold, but every single Avenger lifted their weapons threateningly, lightning and whining engines and safeties being flicked off. Bragi subsided. His lips quivered and all of a sudden he began weeping again, tears coating his cheeks. He fell to the ground, raking his ragged fingernails over his face and arms.

"_**Don't take them,**_" he pleaded in a high and grating voice. "_**I plucked their seeds, I nurtured them - listen to them, how can you want it to stop? Please-**_"

"Bragi," came a gentle voice. Steve looked around to see none other than Tony, and his eyebrows rose. Tony slowly approached, his expression cautious and pitying. "I…" his jaw worked. "I know what it's like to lose a loved one. How it can tear you up inside. But you can't keep these people. It's time to let them go."

"Iðunn would tell you the same thing," Valkyrie added, her face composed.

Bragi moaned, making Steve's ears ache. "_**But the song-**_"

"This is a song only for you," Thor said, gesturing at the tree. "It is not for them, and it's not for us. Let it end."

Bragi shook on the ground, his teeth clenched and his eyes screwed shut. They all watched him, holding their breath. It was all in his hands, this madman. But Steve knew that madness grew out of the deepest emotions: grief, anger, fear. If they could just get through to him…

"It's okay," Steve said softly, adding his voice to the mix. He slowly approached the prostrate Bragi, and lowered to a crouch. He set Mjolnir down. Bragi's milky white eyes opened. "There will still be song, without this tree. You say you've been listening, right? Then you know there's song all over the universe." Steve had heard it too, when he'd journeyed across the galaxies to return the Infinity Stones. Wherever you went, wherever there was life, there was music too.

Steve held his breath.

Bragi lay still for a long time. He no longer shook, or wailed. The tree sang on, rising in symphonies.

Finally:

"_**Where can they go**_?"

"Send them back to where you took them!" Quill exclaimed impatiently.

"_**You would have them die?**_"

"What?"

"_**Most of my skaldi were at the point of passing on when I reaped them,**_" Bragi explained, his voice low and grief ridden.

"Hale Holloway was walking down the street!" Clint snapped, and Steve shot him a warning look.

"_**I - I -**_"

"You got greedy," Loki said dispassionately. "You were afraid they would all vanish again."

Bragi began moaning again, a horrible harmony to the song from the tree. The Avengers gathered closer together, keeping their voices low so Bragi couldn't hear them.

"We'd best send them to the same place then, neutral ground," Tony said quickly. "Somewhere we can control. We could release them here? Get them back on the _Benatar_?"

"If they'd fit," Rocket said.

"We can't have them released here," Strange countered. "The enchantment is too strong, they would simply be absorbed back into the tree."

"So, Earth?" Natasha prompted.

"We'd better hurry, no matter what we decide," Bruce said, eyeing the fallen god. "Who knows how long this guy is going to work with us."

"Well we've got to choose right," Sam said. "Who knows what condition these people will be in, or where they're even from. We'll be dropping them into an entirely new place."

They all fell silent for a moment, thinking. Natasha suggested the Facility grounds, and Shuri suggested Wakanda. Steve was still caught on what Sam had said, though. He felt for the stolen people up in those branches; he knew what it was like to open your eyes in a new world.

It happened very quickly after that.

Bragi suddenly cried out, a resonant shriek that had them all wincing and covering their ears. Bragi leaped to his feet, eyes white and wild, and surged forward toward them - toward Steve. Steve hesitated, eyes wide.

"_**Show me**_**,**" Bragi hissed, touched one gnarled, filthy hand to Steve's forehead, and with the other pressed his fingers to his lips and then let out a sigh, almost as if he were blowing a kiss.

The song in the air around them cut out. The sudden silence was almost as overwhelming as the song had been, and Steve felt Bragi sag at the loss. Steve looked up, eyes wide, just as every golden apple dropped out of the tree and plummeted to the ground.

But instead of bouncing and rolling away, when the orbs made contact with the dark earth the ground rippled like the surface of a black lake, and the orbs plunged down, down into the blackness until they disappeared.

It was as if the lights had been switched off. A faint glow still hung around the tree itself, so Steve could just make out the shapes of his fellow Avengers, but every single golden apple had disappeared.

Bragi cried out and fell back in the darkness, weeping and tearing at his hair.

"_**The SILENCE!**_" he cried. "_**It's so quiet, too quiet, I can't breathe-**_"

"What happened?" Thor called, over the exclamations from the other Avengers. They all turned toward Steve, calling blindly in the darkness. "What did he do to you?"

Steve opened and closed his mouth. He could still feel the echo of Bragi's surprisingly warm touch, and the sensation of Bragi reaching _inside _him, searching into his mind. "I don't… he just…"

"What did you do, Bragi?" Tony asked.

Somewhere in amongst the Avengers talking over each other, Bragi had gone silent.

"_**I sent them back.**_"

"Where?" Natasha demanded.

But Bragi ignored her. A slightly brighter glow was coalescing around him now, like bioluminescence. His long, narrow fingers curled and his white eyes turned upward. "_**I must join you now, my love**_," he whispered, a note of song in his voice. "_**I feel it now - I am ready**_."

The Avengers stared as Bragi staggered to his feet, drew in a shaky breath, and then slowly made his way over to the broken harp in the roots of the tree. Bragi eased down beside the harp, like getting into bed after a long day. He curled around the broken harp and reached out. He ran a finger along the strings.

Steve felt a shiver go down his spine at the ethereal notes that hummed from the instrument at Bragi's touch. Bragi's fingers moved again, exploring the notes, and even though the harp was hopelessly broken Steve could hear a song forming, growing with each note Bragi plucked from the golden strings.

None of the Avengers could move. They'd fallen silent, watching the softly glowing god play the harp that he used to play for his wife. Bragi breathed in, breathed out, and the song swelled. It felt lonely after the orchestra of song in this dark world, but also like no other song Steve had ever heard.

The song began to fade, and with it, Bragi. His fingers slowed, his edges went blurry, and his skin turned translucent before their eyes. He slowly drew his fingers toward himself, shivering over the strings as he played his last note.

The note trembled, held, and then faded. Bragi's form shifted and melted into motes of golden light that one by one dissolved into the darkness.

Natasha was the first to look away. The world was utterly black, and silent, save for the distant lights of the _Benatar._

"What happened?" She asked softly.

"I think…" Steve swallowed. "I think he was searching my memories of Earth."

"So where are they going?" Thor asked.

"I… I don't know, I-"

"Okay, we can figure this out," Tony said. "Let's get back to the ship and get out of here."

"Seconded," Rocket said, sounding relieved.

They began hurrying back over the strange black earth toward the _Benatar_, leaving the barren tree behind them, already going over theories and ideas of where Bragi might have sent his 'fruit'.

But Steve thought he already knew.

* * *

A flash of golden light. A burst of song. Falling, falling.

A world away, Alice hit the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My oh my.
> 
> I have to give a shoutout to aturnofthepage, who was the first one to get the whole Bragi/kidnapped musicians/apples of immortality thing spot on in a comment back in chapter 54 (forty five). It was kinda spooky to see my whole plan laid out like that! Lots more of you figured it out pretty much last chapter, too, and I know some of y'all have been hiding your theories from me haha - were you right?
> 
> Also a few people have sort of put this together already, but at this point it's worth taking a look back over the story, if you want to. _**~ If a sentence looks like this ~**_, it's Bragi speaking (the very first poem/song in the whole story, for example). I do have a list of each chapter he speaks in if you're curious, but I encourage a re-read anyway! Also you may see some "articles" I snuck in about a few other missing musicians as well ;)


	58. Chapter Forty Nine

The ground appeared beneath Alice and she hit it in a roll, jarring her knees and knocking the breath out of her chest.

She pressed her palms against the pavement to steady herself, breathing hard, and… frowned.

It was daylight suddenly, and the ground beneath her was not the gravel rooftop she'd expected to hit, or… had she been somewhere else? She'd been running, or falling… or had she been singing? Her mind thrummed with an echo, as if she were just rising out of a dream. She shook her head, wincing at a headache that flared to life behind her eyes.

Alice knelt on the ground, bowed over. She wore her white performance dress, though it was torn and dirty at the hem. Diamond jewellery dangled from her ears and neck, and her hair fell loose around her face. She noticed blood on her hands and feet - hers, Otto's, the men she'd killed. Her knee ached from where she'd banged it on the stairs up to the roof of the performance building, and whenever she breathed in her ribs on the right side of her chest lit up with pain: she remembered the Gestapo officer punching her before she'd shoved her knife up under his jaw.

Shaking her head again, Alice put a hand to her forehead to soothe the ache and then got shakily to her feet.

The world seemed to explode around her. Bright lights, a riot of color, soaring buildings and a blur of strange cars and people milling around. Alice stood in the centre of a bustling city square, surrounded by light and sound. Her mouth dropped open and she turned, taking in the massive glaring signs: _GAP, Sephora_, a big yellow poster for something called _The Lion King._ Right over her head hung a board with a film of a man singing - in color, as real as if he were standing there.

Alice's heart pounded and her head spun, but as she stared around at her surroundings, the buildings started to make sense. She'd seen a _Coca-Cola _ad in almost that exact spot before, though it hadn't glowed with colored lights. And if she glanced up… _there_: the silhouette of a familiar distant spire.

Her stomach dropped. Trying to slow her rapidly-increasing breaths, she cast a wild glance at her immediate surroundings. Others surrounded her, in stranger garbs than the hundreds of other people milling around. A man in a long draping tunic of some kind with gold circlets on his wrists lay on the ground, panting and wild-eyed, a Japanese-appearing man with a strangely shaved hairstyle and an ancient style of dress stood shivering a few feet away, next to a soaking-wet bearded man in a suit who babbled in Russian, and there were dozens of others who looked just as confused as Alice felt. In amongst the strangers were individuals who surely weren't human: a woman who looked to have European features at first glance, until Alice realised she had four arms, and what looked like a blue-skinned man standing behind her.

People walking past stared at them - they looked strange too, but there was a sameness to them: clothes and hairstyles and devices unlike anything Alice had seen, and yet somewhat uniform amongst the crowd.

Alice took one more second to stare around at the utterly strange people around her, at the familiar and yet alien square, at the lights whirling around her.

And then she ran.

She bolted off the sidewalk and into the road, dodging cars, then ran down a side street. With the same rising fear she'd felt running from the Gestapo after her performance in Berlin, she pushed into the thickening crowd and melted away, like Peggy had taught her.

* * *

As soon as the _Benatar_ arrived back in Earth's atmosphere, the Avengers began unbuckling their harnesses and standing up in the cockpit, and Tony's watch lit up.

"_Boss_," came F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s measured voice, "_I've got a disturbance in Times Square_."

Tony groaned. "Infinity Cult?"

"_I don't think so, police reports are only just coming in, but-_"

Natasha slid out of her chair and flatly eyed Steve as she addressed F.R.I.D.A.Y.: "It wouldn't happen to be a bunch of abducted musicians who very suddenly appeared in Times Square, would it F.R.I.D.A.Y.?"

".._. it would appear to be exactly that, Ms Romanoff._"

Everyone turned to stare at Steve, whose ears went red.

"Really, Steve?" Tony asked, twisting in his chair. "Times Square? Of all the places on Earth?"

"It's really not a neutral location," Sam said in a resigned tone.

Steve winced guiltily. He'd had a suspicion that Bragi might have picked that out of his mind. He'd only been thinking about when _he'd _been dropped into a new world, it hadn't been a suggestion. "I didn't mean-"

But Tony flapped his hand to silence him, and raised his watch. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., liaise with local law enforcement and let them know that we can be there in" - he raised his eyebrows at Rocket, who checked his console and then mouthed _fifteen _\- "fifteen minutes, give or take. Get them to contain and isolate, but keep their distance. Can we get eyes on the situation?"

"_Certainly_."

The _Benatar's _engines kicked in and they began hurtling down to Earth, the blue and green surface rising up to meet them, and Steve had to grip the bulkhead to stay steady. A holoscreen emerged from Tony's watch, encompassing the whole centre of the cockpit, displaying multiple angles of Times Square.

"_This was ten minutes ago_," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said.

Times Square looked busy: people milling in and out of frame, rushing up and down the sidewalk, road traffic backed up on either side. Then there was a sudden blinding gold _flash_, right in the centre of the Square, and once it had subsided Steve saw that a small crowd of people had appeared. They immediately stuck out in the crowded square since most of them wore bizarre outfits, and about half of them stumbled or collapsed to the ground. The other pedestrians stared.

"Isolate and identify if you can, Fri." Tony murmured.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. froze the footage and zoomed in on the newly-arrived group, finding their faces and splitting up the screen into a different profile for each.

"_Captain Rogers_-" F.R.I.D.A.Y. said in a suddenly urgent tone.

But Steve had already seen.

Mjolnir dropped to the ship floor with a metallic _thud. _Steve would have followed, his legs completely useless all of a sudden, if Bucky hadn't lurched forward to grab him.

"It's Alice," Steve croaked, his eyes wide and desperate as he stared at the image of the woman in a white dress with a stunned and bloody face, staring up at her surroundings. "Buck, it's-"

"I see her," Bucky breathed, his voice equally wrecked. "I didn't want to hope, but…"

Steve understood. He'd pressed down on his hope the moment it had risen in Bragi's world, hadn't allowed himself to imagine…

He realized that a flurry of activity had erupted in the cockpit, half the Avengers exclaiming or shoving to get a better look at the holoscreen. Steve could only stare at Alice's frozen face.

"Holy shit," Tony muttered, somehow the only voice Steve could hear in the rush of talking.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y.?" Natasha clipped out. "Give us an update on the current situation."

The holoscreen shifted, sending the individual profiles to a smaller screen on the side, and bringing up the current footage of Times Square. It was chaos; flashing police lights and shoving pedestrians.

"_The NYPD have put up cordons and are isolating forty two musicians as we speak. Nineteen appear to be aliens of some kind. I am coordinating with law enforcement now._"

"Forty two?" Natasha asked sharply, her eyes on the screen of individual profiles. "I count forty three."

"_I am afraid that Ms Moser has fled the scene._"

Steve felt like he was having a protracted heart attack. His chest clenched as if elastic bands were tightening around his ribs, and he couldn't draw in a full breath. "Fled?" he managed to echo. "Where did she go?"

There was a pause before F.R.I.D.A.Y. answered him. "_I'm afraid I don't know._"

* * *

_The New York Times (@nytimes_) Tweet:

_Video: See chaos in #timessquare after a "mass teleportation". Seen in the footage is Hale Holloway, who disappeared four weeks ago in a similar flash of gold light. Other individuals are being identified. Emergency services and Avengers on scene._

* * *

_@liberaceselbow _reply to @_nytimes _Tweet:

_@nytimes, I've been going over the #timessquare_ _footage. Does anyone else think that the woman in white toward the bottom right of the screen at 1:24 (just before the cops arrive) looks a lot like Alice Moser?_

* * *

After several panicked moments of flat-out sprinting, Alice forced herself to think. She was running on pure instinct, barefoot and wounded, and she could tell she was drawing looks. Even without the blood on her hands, her white performance gown was out of place on these streets.

She turned a corner, still running, and saw a cafe with sidewalk seating coming up. On her way past she spotted a jacket draped over the back of someone's chair and seized it. She was at the other end of the block by the time her victim had fully stood out of his chair, shouting after her. She slung the jacket around her shoulders to hide her torn and bloody dress, then swerved onto another street, pressing into the crowd. Her eyes darted, and as she walked past a woman distracted talking to her friend, Alice reached up and snatched the woman's woolen hat right off her head. The woman turned, but Alice was already lost in the crowd.

Alice jammed the hat on her own head and buttoned up the jacket, surreptitiously trying to wipe the blood on her hands onto her skirt. Her left knee throbbed with every step. She remembered falling on it on her way up the stone stairwell toward the roof, where -

Alice's breath caught and she pushed away the memory. She had to think ahead, not behind. She kept weaving and zigzagging, losing herself in the city streets. And she _knew _these streets, which made it easy. Everything had changed, though. The buildings were different than she remembered. And the people around her were strange, most of them carrying sleek devices that reminded her of the radios HYDRA worked with, though she knew these must be for another purpose. She overheard snatches of conversations as she moved through the crowds, noticing how these people talked in strange ways, with strange accents and words.

_Think ahead._

Alice spotted a green newspaper stand on the other side of the street and darted across, narrowly avoiding collision with a bright yellow taxi (they looked _so strange_) which blared its horn at her.

On the other pavement, Alice walked at a snail's pace past the newsstand, as if unsure of her direction. The newsstand, at least, was sort of familiar to her: a compact structure filled to the brim with newspapers, snacks, and cigarettes, with a bored-looking man sat behind the counter. But half the snacks she didn't recognise, and as she grew close she noticed a screen hanging above the vendor's counter. Alice's eyebrows rose. This screen was like the television sets she'd seen in the homes of the filthy rich in Berlin, but so much smaller and sleeker. There was no sound, but full-color images as real as life flickered across the screen. A banner at the bottom read: _Infinity Cult makes history as first interdimensional terror group added to Homeland Security's terror watch list. _

Alice read the words twice before giving up on any hope of understanding them.

She glanced down at the paper and ink newspapers arrayed at the front of the newsstand, and found the _New York Times, _only put off for a moment by the fact it had color pictures. She scanned the front page and found, just under the headline:

_FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2023_

Alice stumbled to a halt so abruptly that the person walking behind her swore and veered around, muttering. Foot traffic streamed around her as she stood in front of the newsstand, staring.

She felt as if everything inside her had turned to stone.

_Steve. Tom. Bucky. Peggy. _

Even as the enormity of it hit her, Alice knew that she couldn't let this paralyse her. She read the date once more, as if to convince herself, then drew in a shaking breath and pressed on into the crowd.

* * *

Times Square had devolved into chaos. The Avengers had touched down in the _Benatar_ just a couple of minutes ago, causing people to scream out of fear of another alien invasion, and now they were just trying to contain the insanity. Half of them were dealing with the confused and alarmed victims of Bragi ("Thor I've got another one, can you get over here with your Allspeak?"). Sirens wailed in the air, curious New Yorkers and tourists pressed around the police cordons trying to get a look, and the musicians themselves were naturally freaking out.

The other half of the Avengers were huddled around Tony's watch, liaising with F.R.I.D.A.Y. and looking through CCTV footage. Steve fidgeted where he stood, shifting his weight from foot to foot and glancing around at the square as if he might spot Alice. Bucky, Natasha, Sam, and Wanda stood around Tony, grave faced. Natasha's fingers danced over her phone screen.

"Well she can't have just _vanished_," Tony shouted over the noise in the square. "What have you got?"

The screen emanating from his watch shifted, displaying dozens of CCTV images of the streets around Times Square. "_I have her here_" - a screen magnified itself, and Steve's heart leaped as he saw Alice running down a sidewalk, her hand pressed to the side of her chest and a look of utter terror on her face - "_leaving the square on 46th, it seems she's heading east-_"

Steve's muscles bunched and his head jerked up to look in the direction of the street in question-

"But then she goes left on 5th, I found that one," Natasha said, still staring at her phone. Steve could see her swiping through camera feeds. "But then after East 49th, what have you got? There's a-"

"_A gap in the coverage_," F.R.I.D.A.Y. acknowledged. "_Boss, not all of New York is covered by cameras I can access, and Moser is changing direction too rapidly for me to predict-_"

"She's using alleyways," Natasha said grimly.

"Where's the last place you saw her?" Steve said desperately. "I'll go there now-"

"Wanda, see if you can commandeer a vehicle," Natasha murmured.

"I'll _run_," Steve urged.

"_Last known location is 3rd and 57th._"

"Could be heading to the bridge," Bucky suggested, his flesh hand clenched so tight that his muscles had gone white.

The noise in the Square suddenly peaked in a loud shout, and they all looked up to see a dark-skinned woman in a finely made purple tunic shouting in Wakandan at a police officer who was trying to corral her toward one of the emergency med tents. Princess Shuri looked up from where she'd been tending to a hyperventilating musician and ran over.

"We need to get these people out of here," Bruce called. "Strange? How do you feel about going to your place?"

"Say no more," Strange said, and with a flick of his hand began opening portals under the feet of musicians and Avengers alike.

Sam reached out to grab Steve's shoulder, and Steve realized he was so tense that his muscles were aching. "We'll find her, Steve," he said reassuringly. "She can't get far."

Steve drew in a breath and tried to hold it, but it rushed out a moment later. "Yes," he said. "She can."

* * *

Excerpt from CNN Live News Alert:

"_We have a breaking news update on the Times Square teleportation story: it's been confirmed that among the newly-appeared musicians is none other than Alice Moser, AKA 'the Siren'."_

* * *

_@bodkinss1 _Tweet:

_Yo, my brother's got a police scanner and they just put out an APB for THE SIREN._

* * *

Alice had run thirty blocks, but it had taken her over an hour thanks to the side cuts, backtracks and diversion she had taken. She didn't know if she was being chased (she didn't know _anything_) but her last memories were of running for her life, and her instincts told her to hide and find the time to assess her new situation.

She got a few askance looks since she was barefoot, in a knee-length men's jacket with a woolen hat, but mostly no one spared her a second glance. There were plenty of other strange-looking people on the streets.

When she'd made it down to Chelsea, she spotted a glassfront store with the sign '_GOODWILL_' over it. She wondered if it was the same kind of Goodwill that she knew. She peered in through the windows, and spotted racks of clothes.

Taking a chance, Alice strode inside. A sign just inside the door read _THIS STORE IS MONITORED BY CCTV. _She wasn't sure what that meant, but there was a picture of something that looked like a film camera. She peered around, frowning, and saw cameras swivelling in the corners of the shop. It reminded her of HYDRA technology. Her eyes widened and she ducked her head to avoid the camera's eye.

It was cool inside the shop, and quieter than the rush and noise outside. Alice cast a glance at the single employee at the counter, then strode down the racks, staring at the unfamiliar fabrics and styles. There was far more colour here than Alice could ever have expected: a riotous mix of glitter, satin, nylon, leather, canvas, and fabrics she didn't have a name for. She was reminded of the limited range of clothes Matthias's tailor shop had had on offer, and her chest ached.

She eventually chose an amalgamation of what she'd noticed on the streets outside: a pair of strange tightly fitted denim waist overalls, boots, a brightly colored T-shirt style top, and sunglasses. She would keep her stolen jacket and hat. She took the clothes (as well as an armful of extra clothes as a decoy) into one of the changing rooms and quickly got dressed, struggling with the unusual fits and fastenings. She left her ruined dress and the other things in a pile on the floor of the changing room, and then strode out again.

She walked leisurely toward the exit, outwardly calm. The cashier was helping another customer at the desk. But then as Alice reached the doors, two plastic structures on either side of the exit lit up red and blared a high-pitched alarm. Alice nearly jumped out of her skin, shrinking as a few other customers glanced around, and bunched her muscles to run, but then-

"Oh, that thing always goes off," said the cashier, looking up from his customer. He flapped a hand. "Don't worry about it."

Round eyed, Alice strode out the doors and into the sunlight.

* * *

After an alert from F.R.I.D.A.Y., the search team rushed to the Goodwill on West 25th street, questioning the wide-eyed cashier and double checking the footage. Wanda emerged from the changing room, pale-faced, with a bloodied and torn white dress in her hand.

Natasha reviewed the footage on her phone, frowning. Steve looked over her shoulder. The footage was laggy, but the Alice on screen was the one Steve recognised: her eyes were shrewd, calculating, and she walked with utter confidence.

"She's wearing jeans and a green tee in the footage," Clint said after he'd interviewed the cashier. "We can update the APB right away." His brow lowered. "But if she's this good, she'll keep changing up her appearance."

"She's always been good at disguises," Bucky said, his low tone belying the tight, strained note in his voice.

Steve let out a breath and pushed through the Goodwill doors onto the street again, looking up and down. F.R.I.D.A.Y. had lost Alice again when she'd ducked down another side alley. Steve wanted to _run, _but he didn't know where.

The others followed a few moments later, deep in discussion.

"I can't imagine what's going through her head," Natasha said. "The other musicians are confused, the last thing they remember is the moments before Bragi kidnapped them." She turned to Steve. "What did you think, when you first woke up in the future?"

His fingers clenched and unclenched. "It was all explained to me pretty quickly, but even before that I just… I knew it was _wrong._ I thought I was a POW at first, but then I broke out and I recognized New York. But the city is… completely different. It's hard to describe."

"It is really weird," Bucky acknowledged. "Alice has to know something's up."

Steve reached up and ran a hand through his hair. "She's quick, she'll have figured out she's in the future. But she probably doesn't know that I - that Bucky and I are alive." His face crumpled. "She thinks she's alone."

* * *

Buzzfeed News Article: '_The Times Square Teleportation: Live Updates'_

_1:24PM CONFIRMED: After about an hour of speculation, an NYPD press officer has confirmed that the individuals who appeared in Times Square earlier today are all musicians from "various points throughout history". The reported sightings of aliens has also been confirmed, in connection with the musicians. The press officer neither confirmed nor denied the rumors that Alice Moser was among the newly-returned musicians, stating "In order to protect the individuals in this incident, we won't be giving specific personal information at this time."_

* * *

_@paxlings _Tweet:

_Uh, so despite what the NYPD says, THE SIREN IS ALIVE! Does Captain America know? #timessquare_

* * *

Excerpt from NBC Newscast:

"_... authorities are still declining to provide personal details about the returned historical musicians, but the internet has made pretty quick work of identifying them from the publicly-available footage, Sally."_

"_That's right, and there are some famous faces in there, aren't there?"_

"_Exactly. Let's go over those we know so far - we've got Bailey Wilson, a country singer and songwriter whose private airplane went down in 1973, but whose body was never recovered. We've got Russian composer Dmitri Mager-Loginov who was lost at sea in 1868, a gentleman who looks to be from Ancient Rome, several others who historians have identified as Ancient Norse poets-"_

"_A real legacy here of historical people associated with music, Phil."_

"_Absolutely, and music does seem to be the main connection between them all. And last but not least, of course, is none other than the famous world war two performer and spy the Siren, Alice Moser, also known for the modern revelations that she was married to the Avengers' own Captain America."_

"_That must've been a shock!" _

"_Well here's even more of a shocker, Sally, let's review the footage. You see here… yes, there's the big flash of light and now we have all our musicians… now look there, see the Siren?"_

"_I see her, Phil, she's looking around like the rest of them - I must say, she doesn't look in good shape. And then - oh! She's running!"_

"_That's right. Sources within the NYPD who've requested not to be identified have confirmed that Alice Moser is actually missing right now, as we speak. We understand the other musicians are in the care and custody of Avengers staff, with the notable exception of the Siren. It seems that though we don't fully understand the Times Square Teleportation yet, Alice Moser has appeared perhaps due to the fact that she shares a talent for music along with these other newly-arrived people. But she has a quality it seems most of them don't have: she is a spy, and she's now on the loose."_

* * *

Alice moved differently once she'd changed clothes. She kept pace with the crowds instead of running through them: walking like the other people on the street, talking like them. She had no particular destination (_Brooklyn_, came a stray thought, but she brushed it aside. There was nothing for her there). So she watched, and listened.

She began to focus on the devices everyone carried around with them. She quickly figured out they were wireless telephones of some kind, but she knew it had to be more than that. So she spied on every single one she could, peering at their bright, clear screens and the way their owners interacted with them.

People looked at photos and films on their phones, took photographs, plugged in cords and began _listening _to them. She saw someone walk past with what looked like a map of New York on their phone, though it was unlike any other map she'd ever seen.

As she paused for a moment, leaning against an old sandstone building in the shade, a couple came to a stop nearby.

The man was waiting for his girlfriend to fix her shoe, and Alice saw his eyes alight on one of the large green street signs. "I wonder how old the Lincoln Tunnel is?"

"I don't know, look it up," said his girlfriend, sounding bored.

The man pulled his phone out of his pocket and began tapping away. Alice tried not to stare. She'd had to go to classes just to be allowed to use a typewriter, and now everyone seemed able to type on tiny little screens with no problem.

The man raised his eyebrows. "Says it was built in 1937" - Alice remembered them finishing the tunnel, actually - "so that's what… eighty six years old."

Alice simultaneously felt a sinking feeling at _that _information, and wonder at how quickly the information had come to the man's fingertips.

"You'd hope they've refurbished it by now," chuckled the woman.

Alice straightened her shoulders and marched over to the couple. "Excuse me?" she said in one of the most common accents she'd heard on the street. Like the New York accent she was used to hearing, but… different.

The couple looked up, eyebrows raised.

Alice nodded at the man's phone. "Where can I get one of those? So I can…" she thought of the way the woman had said it. "Look information up?"

He looked at her like she was crazy. "I don't know, the Apple store?"

Alice stared back. _Apple store?_ _Is the thing edible?_

The man rolled his eyes. "Look, if you really need the internet just head to the library, they've got free shit there." His girlfriend tugged on his elbow, and they walked away, very pointedly not looking back at Alice.

"I hate New York," Alice heard the woman say through laughter.

Alice rubbed her chin. She hoped the library hadn't moved.

* * *

After hours of searching, the Avengers reconvened at Natasha's headquarters in Manhattan. Steve hadn't wanted to go - he was determined to circumnavigate the island of Manhattan if necessary - but Bucky had convinced him to rest for a few moments, and make a plan.

Thor and Dr Strange stood at the front of the Operations Room, updating them on the situation with Bragi's musicians.

"... Forty three _skaldi_ in total," Thor said, looking exhausted, "Twenty four from Earth - one, er, unaccounted for - and the rest were kidnapped from various other planets. We think Bragi paid the most attention to Earth because it was the main focus of the Asgardian Empire while he was a part of it, and Iðunn was known for her love of Earth."

Shuri stood up and faced the room. "Some of the musicians are wounded or ill, but I am happy to report that all will make a full recovery."

Strange nodded. "Valkyrie and the Guardians are making arrangements for the offworlders to be returned to their cultures. As for those from Earth, about half are from times recent enough that they speak the modern versions of their languages. We're tracking down descendants and getting in touch with local governments, as we think it's best for them to reassimilate in their home countries with as much familiarity as possible."

"The other half speak old variants of existing languages or completely lost languages," Thor said. "I will stay with them to assist them through Allspeak." He quirked a brow. "The Roman fellow is proving particularly talkative."

"And the Norse _skaldi_ keep treating him like he's god's gift to mankind," muttered Loki in the back row. Wanda laughed under her breath.

"In the meantime," Vision continued, "I will be collaborating with various historians and linguists to facilitate more long-term communication."

"And I think they're all going to need a hell of a lot of therapy," Natasha added.

Shuri tipped her head. "On it."

"Well, good work team," Tony said, eyebrows raised. As distracted as he was, Steve had to agree - this new group, be they Avengers or not, worked remarkably well together.

"And what of Alice?" Thor asked, his face grave.

"She fricking _rabbited_," Tony exclaimed. "Not even F.R.I.D.A.Y. can find her, she-"

"Tony," Natasha said, shooting him a _look. _

Tony glanced back at Steve and Bucky's drawn faces, and shut his mouth. "Sorry."

"We're still looking," Steve said in answer to Thor. "If we could get to her we'd explain what's going on, but we've got no idea what she's thinking. We're going to head back out there soon."

"We've had a few reports about her from the first hour or two after she ran," Bucky added, "but those are getting few and far between. She's learning."

"Well hopefully she'll figure out she's got nothing to run from," Clint said encouragingly.

"Except a city-wide manhunt," Loki said, then held up his hands when half a dozen people spun to glare at him.

"And the PR, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?" Natasha asked.

"_Predictably the Times Square arrival caused somewhat of a sensation. Most of the musicians have already been publicly identified, including Ms Moser, and the public is aware that she's missing._"

"Maybe that'll help us, get public eyes looking for her," Rhodey said.

Steve ran a hand over his face. _What a mess._ He felt _hundreds _of years old.

Carol cleared her throat. "I'm going to help resituate the off worlders soon, but I've got some time until then." She glanced at Steve. "I'll head out to the streets, join the search."

"Me too," piped up Spider-Man, who had joined them about an hour ago when he'd heard about the Times Square incident. He fired off an enthusiastic salute, making Tony chuckle under his breath.

"Thanks," Steve offered a weak smile. He checked the time, then looked back at the holographic map of New York City they'd put up, with blue pins for where Alice had been sighted. She'd last been seen at the Goodwill two hours ago. She could be anywhere by now.

Steve had barrelled through New York City like a bull in a china shop when he first woke up in the future. Alice had slipped beneath its surface like a raindrop in a pond. He wished he could just tell her: _You don't have to run_. But he understood the instinct. He'd had the same one, after all. Alice was just better at not getting caught.

Bucky's metal hand landed on his shoulder, and Steve looked up. Everyone else was standing, beginning preparations for the next stages of their various plans. Bucky's face was drawn, and he looked just as anxious as Steve felt.

Bucky drew in a breath, and then squeezed Steve's shoulder. "She's _alive._" His eyes were wide and disbelieving, and there was a hint of… excitement in them.

Steve let out a rush of breath. And, alarmingly, tears prickled at his eyes. He hadn't had a chance to really think about it since landing in Times Square. "She's alive," he echoed, his voice a croak. He hadn't missed her in Berlin, she hadn't died an awful death.

Bucky grinned. "Alice is alive, Steve. She's alive, and she's in New York City."

Steve opened and closed his mouth as his vision went blurry. "We gotta find her."

"We will," Bucky said resolutely. "Steve, Alice is good, but she's not all-the-Avengers-and-New-York-looking-for-her good. We'll find her."

Steve nodded and looked down. He let out a breath and realised he was shaking suddenly, all of it hitting him at once. Most of the others had turned away, focused on their own conversations, but Sam, Nat, and Tony were watching them silently.

"We'll find her," Steve echoed.

The certainty of it swelled in his chest, and he instantly knew that this was a purpose unlike anything he'd ever had: not even winning the war or stopping Thanos had felt so sure. Alice might be traumatised, might not recognize the man Steve had become, might never want to see him again. But he _was _going to find her, if only once, and nothing would stand in his way.

Steve rose to his feet. "Let's get back out there."

* * *

The library hadn't moved.

Alice strode up the steps to the grand marble building, casting a glance at the stone lions. _Patience and Fortitude, _were their names. Alice had spent plenty of her childhood here, since the library was one of the only publicly accessible buildings where it was acceptable to stay for hours and not buy anything.

In the cool shade of the building Alice floundered for a moment, overwhelmed by the completely different interior, and then strode toward the wooden desk manned by a woman wearing glasses.

"Hello, how can I help you this afternoon?" the woman asked with a pleasant smile.

"I need the internet," Alice told her.

The librarian raised her eyebrows, smiled, and then pointed to several rows of desks, each with its own sleek silver screen. Alice's brow furrowed. These weren't the small devices that everyone seemed to have in their pocket, they looked more like the larger screen she'd seen at the newsstand.

"You can access the internet at any of our computers there," the librarian smiled. "Let me know if you have any issues!"

Steeling herself, Alice strode over to a desk, stared down at the _computer _for a second, and then took a seat. She made sure to keep her head low, since she'd noticed the _CCTV _signs on the way in.

The computer, she found, was fairly intuitive. At first the black screen stared blankly back at her, but then her hand brushed the round device connected by a cord to it, and the whole screen lit up with information. She was instantly presented with a simple white screen with a colorful logo: _GOOGLE._ Below the logo was a bar that indicated it wanted her to search for something.

Alice hummed under her breath, moving the round device around with her hand for a while to give herself time - a little arrow moved around on screen in parallel to her movements.

_Search_, said the bar. _Search for what? _Alice wondered. _Information._ She'd come here on a search for information, but now she was here and she… didn't know what to do.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she used the device in her hand to _select _the bar. Then she moved to the keyboard and typed, with the precision learned from her typist classes at school:

_Where am I?_

Half a dozen guesses unfolded beneath her words as she typed, rather disorientingly. At first, nothing happened. Then, as she'd been taught in class, she hit _return._

Instantly the screen flashed again, moving her search bar to the top and then under that:

_About 6,210,000,000 results (0.66 seconds)_

Below that, there was a small picture of a map with a red arrow over "_New York Public Library_". Alice's eyes widened. No wonder everyone wanted this in their pockets.

She returned to the search bar and typed _When am I?_ But this time there was a confusing mixture of blue headlines after the screen flashed. There was something that looked like a song, and then some kind of information blurb about pregnancy. _The internet doesn't answer me directly, then. It's guessing._

Alice narrowed her eyes, her fingers hovering over the keyboard.

She'd come here for a reason, but suddenly the enormity of her situation overwhelmed her again. She most wanted to look up… but no, she wasn't ready to type in Steve's name. She wasn't ready to be confronted with his death.

Instead she looked around, at the peace and normalcy in the library. When she looked back at her computer, she typed in:

_Who won the war?_

As soon as she hit enter she realized it was a silly question - if this internet could access all information then it would have hundreds of wars to tell her about.

When the screen flashed and changed, the first blue headline read:

_World War II - Wikipedia._

She frowned at the unfamiliar last word, but then noticed a date under the headline: 1939. She hovered over the blue headline and then clicked the button.

This brought her to a new, completely different screen. _This is dizzying._ Her trusty search bar was gone, replaced by a strange jigsaw globe in the corner titled _Wikipedia, _and the biggest headline she saw read: _World War II._

Her eyes flicked over the screen until she found: _Date: 1 September 1939 - 2 September 1945 (6 years and 1 day)._

Alice's breath skipped. _It ended on my birthday_, she realized. She last remembered January of 1945. Her eyes kept darting. There was so much information before her, half of it lit up blue, but none of it _mattered. _

_Did we win? _she wanted to ask it. She eventually figured out that if she pressed the _down _arrow on the keyboard, the whole page would go down, providing more information. And then - _there_, on the side:

_Result: Allied victory._

Alice's hand flew to her mouth and she could barely suppress the _whoop _that she almost let out right there in the library. She looked around, a little embarrassed, but no one was looking her way. She realized a tear had spilled down her cheek. _We really did it._

Under "_Allied victory_" there was a whole mess of information:

_Collapse of __Nazi Germany__  
Fall of the __Japanese_ _and __Italian Empires__  
Allied military occupations of __Germany,_ _Japan__, __Austria__, and foundation of the __Italian Republic__  
Beginning of the __Nuclear Age__  
Dissolution of the __League of Nations_ _and creation of the __United Nations__  
Emergence of the __United States_ _and the __Soviet Union_ _as rival __superpowers_ _and beginning of the __Cold War_ _(__more…__)_

Alice couldn't begin to comprehend half of that, though the beginning of _another _war felt like a heavy blow raining down on her victory. She shook her head to clear it, and scanned the screen until she found an arrow at the top. She hovered her movable arrow over it, thinking, and then a little sign popped up saying '_click to go back, hold to see history_'. She clicked it, then found herself at the same _GOOGLE _search bar.

She still wasn't ready to see Steve (every time she thought of him her mind skidded away, as if afraid of the oncoming damage), so instead she looked up:

_Who is Alice Moser?_

Her heart pounded as she realized she had a whole long article on that same _Wikipedia _place. She clicked on it, and a photograph (black and white like she was used to, not this world of color like technicolor gone mad) of her own face popped up. She glanced around, to make sure no one could see her screen, before looking back. A table on the side of the screen listed her basic information. Her birth date and place, followed by:

_Disappeared: January 1945 (date unknown)._

Alice's heart thudded. _I'm MIA. Eighty years ago._

She closed her eyes, frowning. She remembered Otto's mangled face and his blood on her hands, running, killing, jumping -

She remembered a warm, golden embrace, that grew tighter and tighter until all she saw was gold and her own voice was squeezed out of her in song.

Alice gasped and opened her eyes, her heart pounding. She pressed a hand to her chest and looked around again, but she'd thankfully gone unheard.

Shakily, Alice returned to her own Wikipedia article.

_Battles/Wars: Second World War_

_Awards:  
Presidential Medal of Freedom (United States)  
Righteous Among the Nations (Israel)  
Officer of the Legion of Honour (France)  
Croix de guerre (France)  
_ _Médaille de la Résistance (France)  
Decoration for Services to the Liberation of Austria (Austria)  
German Order of Merit (Germany)  
(more…)_

Alice's heart stopped. She didn't understand that list, not at all. _America __and_ _Germany? _What's more, what was she being awarded for? Had… her stomach churned. Had the world found out about what she'd done? And they didn't despise her? Was this Peggy's doing? Steve's?

She stared at the list for a few long moments, trying to understand.

But then her eyes snagged on a detail she'd missed.

_Allegiance: Allies_

Alice's hand rose to her mouth. Seeing that in print made her want to cry. _They know._

Then, at the bottom of the table, there was a final heading:

_Spouse: Steve Rogers_

Alice went still.

_How...?_ She went all the way up to the top right of the screen and closed the whole thing, leaving her with a blue background and a few icons. She could just see her reflection in the screen: wide-eyed, mouth open, white as a sheet.

She clicked on the _GOOGLE _icon to open it up again, typed in her name again, and the same page popped up again. She clicked it, and saw _Spouse: Steve Rogers_ again.

This was _public knowledge._ Alice ran her hands through her hair. _How could anyone know this? How could the world know this?_

She realized Steve's name was lit up blue. She brought her little arrow over it, and clicked.

The screen flashed. This time there was a photograph of Steve, but it wasn't black and white. It was full, bright color, of Steve wearing a uniform Alice had never seen before, looking somehow _different. _Alice's eyes blurred with tears. Her eyes darted, lost.

_There's no death date._

She couldn't take anything in, she didn't know where to look first. It had his service record below his photo too, with names of wars and battles Alice had never heard of, and there at the bottom:

_Spouse: Alice Moser_

Alice closed down the whole screen and shoved herself back from the computer. Several people looked over at the squeak of her chair, but Alice paid them no notice. She just stared at her own reflection in the computer screen: a terrified, lost woman in stolen clothes who'd been hurled into the future, where nothing, _nothing_, made sense.

* * *

_Text message from: Amaya_

_Steve, I just heard - oh my god, is it true?_

_Reply from: Steve_

_Yes. Busy looking for her now, can't talk sry._

_Reply from: Amaya_

_Of course, let me know if there's anything I can do to help. I don't know what to say._

* * *

_(14 Missed Calls from: Jilí Kreisky_)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reunion who?
> 
> Ding ding ding for FandomHoarder, who guessed correctly where Bragi would drop the musicians ;)
> 
> Also history note: Alice's 'waist overalls' are jeans - they were around in her day, but weren't called jeans until the 1960s. Also, Goodwill's been around since the early 1900s!
> 
> We hit 1000 reviews and 400 followers last chapter, thank you all so much ❤️️


	59. Chapter Fifty

Alice spent another ten minutes in the library. She was aware that there were swivelling, watching cameras in here too, and her instincts itched at the stillness.

She returned to her computer, and read as much as she could bear. She tried to make more headway into Steve's _Wikipedia _article before giving up: it was impossibly long, and she didn't understand half of it. Plus, each new piece of information made her head pound and her heart ache. So she searched for information on each of her loved ones in turn.

Tom: _gone._ Alice began to cry where she sat, and read enough on _his _Wikipedia article to make her heart crack and swell with pride.

Bucky: _not gone._ This sent her into another fit of hyperventilation. His article was _horrifying_, each new detail making nausea rise in her gut. Bucky and Steve, both fallen just weeks after she went missing. And then… HYDRA. Dead, not dead, dead. They'd done despicable things.

Alice couldn't make herself keep reading, so she scrolled down to the bottom and saw that he was… alive. Safe.

_I don't even know if I can believe anything I'm reading_. She felt utterly overwhelmed: her body ached, her mind reeled, and her heart felt like fragments of shattered glass in her chest, cutting into her with each movement. She couldn't process information, couldn't think.

So she looked up Peggy quickly (_another blow to her heart like a boot stomping on the glass fragments_), Otto (_no surprises, just a twist of her guts at the sight of his photograph_), and then she was done. Her only instinct was to _get out._

Alice shut everything down and ran. She needed distance and solitude. Even in her overwhelmed state, however, a thought lodged itself in her mind: _maybe I'm not alone after all._

* * *

Four hours later, when the sun had set, a handful of Avengers arrived at New York Grand Central Library. The library was still open, though fairly quiet, so they didn't cause too much of a stir when they marched up the steps and approached the library desk.

They were lucky they'd gotten the lead, really. Since news of Alice going on the run had hit the public, they'd had an influx of called-in leads, including one from a slightly skeptical librarian. F.R.I.D.A.Y. had reviewed the library footage, and concluded that there was a 65% chance that the woman on the footage was Alice - it was hard to tell, since no angle ever seemed to catch the woman's face and her hair was hidden in a beanie, so F.R.I.D.A.Y. was going off approximate height and body type.

They'd been following up other leads at the time, but when F.R.I.D.A.Y. brought the footage to their attention and had them watch it… Steve knew. He couldn't see her face, but he was 100% certain that the woman casually striding into the library was Alice. The others hadn't been totally convinced by his certainty, but agreed to follow it up.

As Steve, Bucky, Sam, Nat, Tony and Wanda approached the librarian's desk, each of them looking dead on their feet, the two librarians manning the desk did double takes.

"Which one of you is Ms Ellington?" asked Sam politely, though his smile was rather strained. They'd been running all over the city.

The librarian on the right raised her hand, eyes wide. "Is this about that report we called in?" she asked. She glanced at the other librarian, as if for help. "But we… I mean I said I wasn't sure, really, and it seems kind of farfetched-"

"You called about this woman, correct?" Tony interrupted, holding up his phone to show them the library CCTV footage from a few hours ago. A woman in a light jacket, scarf, and beanie walked up to the librarian's desk, had a short conversation, then went to sit at a computer.

The librarian leaned forward. "Yeah, that's her. Really, I only called in to cover our bases, she sort of matched the description and she left pretty quickly but I wouldn't say I _recognized _her-"

"It's her," Steve said, and both librarians _stared _at him.

Sam cleared his throat. "Anyway, did any behaviour stand out to you? How did she seem?"

"Fine," Ms Ellington said. "Really the only thing that stuck out to me was how fast she ran out of here, but other than that she was… calm. Normal."

"As per her training," Natasha muttered under her breath, and Steve repressed the urge to fidget.

"I mean, really?" said the other librarian, looking around at them all. "_Alice Moser_? in the _library_?"

"Yeah," added the other one. "I mean, she… she asked to use the internet! She used the computer! How did she-"

"Right," Tony cut in. "Which computer did she use?" He checked the footage still playing out on her screen - Alice was in the far corner of the footage, her back to the camera. He looked up and pointed. "That one?"

"That's right, 6D."

Bucky fidgeted. "Any way to know what she looked up?"

"Yeah, give me a sec," Tony said. He cleared the CCTV footage from his phone and then began tapping away, working so fast that Steve couldn't make sense of it. "Just have to isolate the IP address..."

While Tony leaned on the librarian's desk and worked on his phone, Sam rolled his eyes, strode over to the computer, opened the browser and hit _history_.

"Got it," he called, and Tony looked crestfallen. Sam's eyebrows rose. "Oh boy."

They all hurried over, leaving the stunned librarians behind, and crowded around the computer. For a few moments they just stood in silence, reading the record of google searches and wikipedia pages that had been visited four hours ago.

"So it was definitely her. And she must know you're alive, then," Sam said in a soft, almost awed voice.

"And me!" Bucky exclaimed, pointing a metal finger at the screen. "Look, she went on my Wikipedia page."

"This is weird," Wanda muttered.

Steve stared at the first few searches. _Where am I? When am I? Who won the war? _A few minutes later: _Who is Alice Moser?_

The other musicians had been confused, but they knew themselves. Steve's fingers clenched on the back of the chair. _What's going on in your head, Alice?_

As he stared silently at the screen, the others began wondering aloud at the content of Alice's search history.

"Where would she go from here?" Natasha asked.

"She'd try to find Steve," Bucky said.

Sam hummed. "Keep in mind, this has to be a lot of information for her to absorb," he said reasonably. "From the footage it looks like she left in a hurry. We don't know what she's thinking, or what she believes. What's her instinct, when she's panicked?"

Everyone looked to Steve. He didn't take his eyes off the screen. He saw Tom's Wikipedia page on the list. "She… she closes off. She'd get all the facts then bide her time, figure out the best move. She's patient. She doesn't like making rash decisions."

"And I never know _what _she'll end up doing," Bucky added with a hint of annoyance.

Natasha sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Then… unless we get another lead…" she looked up, out to the doors of the library and the darkened streets beyond. "I think the ball's in Alice's court."

* * *

Alice found a safehouse in Brooklyn and went to ground. She'd scoped around for a few hours until she found an apartment with its lights off, its letterbox stuffed full of letters, and dust on the doorhandle. She broke in through a back window and after quickly checking out the place (there was no _CCTV_, and she was pretty sure the family had gone on holiday), she collapsed onto the sofa and fell asleep, utterly exhausted.

She woke up the next morning somehow in even more pain than the day before: a nasty black and blue bruise had bloomed on the side of her chest, and she was forced to limp around on her wounded knee. Not that she went very far - she left the house only to steal food from the local outdoor market. For the most part she sat in her safe house with the lights off, and thought.

She still could not wrap her mind around the _how _and _why_, but she knew that she had suffered an enormous loss. In the safety of darkness she grieved for Tom, and Otto, and Peggy, and all the others she had lost through circumstance or time. She cried over Steve and Bucky too - she wasn't really sure that she believed what she'd read yesterday. It was too heartrending and yet too good to be true at the same time.

Alice realized that she'd found herself in a place of deep trauma; worse than when she'd been near catatonic in Vienna after the death of her parents, worse than when she'd had to cut ties with Steve, Bucky, and Tom in Germany, worse even than when she'd been running for her life in Berlin after finding Otto's broken and lifeless body. So she didn't make a plan, and didn't force herself to think about what came next. She sat eating stolen bread and sipping from a comfortingly familiar glass bottle of Coke, allowing herself to heal and process.

* * *

Steve and the others looked everywhere they could think of: Brooklyn Bridge Park, Alice's old apartment building (though it had been refurbished, and Tom's family had sold the tailor shop years ago), both of their old schools, the library, the alleyways they'd haunted as kids, the docks. They found no sign of her, and though more and more leads kept pouring in, they were getting less plausible. They'd had no realistic sighting of her since Grand Central Library.

Steve got recognized less nowadays, thanks to the beard and the civilian clothes, but when people recognized him on his search they looked at him with such _pity _that it made his skin crawl. The whole world knew that Alice was missing, _again_, and they were all looking to him to find her. Steve didn't mind that so much since he _was _going to find her, but he couldn't stand the pitying, expectant looks.

But despite his search, the world had begun to cautiously celebrate. Most of the information about Bragi had come out, and though people were still shocked and adjusting to the knowledge that an extraterrestrial being had been abducting musicians for centuries, the sudden return of the eclectic bunch was exciting: like a hidden time capsule. The historical community was over the moon.

The musicians themselves (the off-worlders had gone with the Guardians, Thor, and Carol yesterday to be resituated) had been set up with accommodation in Wakanda for now under the protection of the Avengers, with a rotation of doctors, historians, linguists, therapists, and agents. Steve felt for them. He'd been in almost exactly their position. But he'd only traveled seventy years - many of the musicians had come from much more distant eras. Many of them were forced to learn a new language to express themselves.

But Steve didn't really spare more than a few thoughts for them. Out of forty three musicians they'd rescued from Bragi, there was only one who consumed his every waking moment.

Bucky stuck by his side, silent and steady, his face determined. Sam, too, though he was usually the one to convince them to stop to eat and sleep.

Steve didn't sleep.

* * *

Blog post by Amaya Reyes, December 2 2023:

_ALICE, COME HOME_

_We've all heard the news by now: Alice Moser is not only alive, but she is in New York City. She appeared in Times Square along with forty two other musicians, who we've learned were abducted by a rogue Asgardian over the course of our history. _

_Yes, I've received an influx of news and questions about this, but this isn't about me._

_Alice Moser is alive and out there somewhere. The Avengers are looking for her. _

_Put yourself in Alice's shoes for a moment, if you can: you wake up nearly eighty years from now, in an unrecognizable future. You've just been plucked out of one of the most dangerous times and places in history. You're confused, you're grieving: you think that everyone you love and everyone who loves you is dead. _

_But for Alice, that isn't completely true. Not only does she have surviving family and friends, but she needs to know that the world is safe for her now. The last thing she knew, we were in the middle of one of the bloodiest wars of human history. I have studied Alice for years, and I know she has the skills to stay hidden, even in an unfamiliar place. She has survival instincts rarely seen in most people. If I had to guess, I'd say that she's hiding out, biding her time, trying to understand._

_So I'm asking you now to put out the word: Steve Rogers is alive. Bucky Barnes is alive. The war is over. _

_Alice, wherever you are - you can come home._

* * *

The next day, Alice felt well enough to emerge from her safehouse again. She was determined to avoid the places she was familiar with, too afraid to see how much they had changed. She had returned once before in 1942, six years after leaving, and she'd been startled then at how much everything had changed. She wasn't sure what changes eighty years would bring.

She went to a different store to steal food, and forced herself to sit in the sunshine awhile before scurrying back to her hidey hole. She sat on a bench a couple of blocks down from her apartment building, devouring a packaged sandwich she'd stolen, watching a teenaged baseball team practice in the park across the road. She kept her hat (a cap she'd found in a lost and found basket) tipped low over her face.

As she watched the teenage boys toss baseballs back and forth, and a fresh breeze blew down the street, Alice drew in a long breath. Her heart raced wherever she confronted her thoughts head-on, but she forced herself to focus for a moment.

_Life here is… peaceful_, she thought. Kids played in the park, families walked down the street, the sun shone. She swallowed her mouthful. _Maybe I should think about reaching out._ To who, she wasn't sure. The police? A government building? She wasn't sure if she ought to be as terrified as she felt. It was hard to switch off the instincts that urged her to _run, hide_.

_And if Steve really is alive… _Alice's heart fluttered almost painfully, and she allowed her thoughts to skid away from that particular idea. She couldn't allow herself to believe what she'd read, because if it wasn't true… she wasn't sure her heart could take it. Still, there were only a handful of people who knew that she and Steve had gotten married, and for it to now be public knowledge...

She contemplated her next actions as she strode back to her safe house, her jacket bulky with all the stolen food she'd stuffed inside it.

She was almost back to the apartment building when she saw her name, and stopped in her tracks.

In the second story window of a block of apartments across the road, someone had hung up a large cardboard sign.

_ALICE, COME HOME_, it read. Alice blinked at the block letters for a while, then hurried on. But as if seeing the sign had unlocked some new awareness, she saw the words twice more before she got back. One of the signs had a drawing of Steve's shield under it. Alice's heart raced. She didn't know what this meant, or if it was even for her. She still didn't really believe that Steve was alive. Could it be that this was all some elaborate trick?

_Perhaps I hit my head in the fall, and this is all a hallucination._

Just as Alice arrived back to her apartment, her skin prickling as if there were a thousand eyes on her, she spotted a newspaper in a trash can on the pavement. Her face looked back at her from the front page.

Wide eyed, Alice shoved open the door and fled inside.

* * *

Steve sat at his dining room table, his knee bouncing as he ate a sandwich he couldn't taste. Sam, Bucky, and Nat sat at the other chairs, working as they ate. Sam had forced them into another break for food and they'd gone back to Steve's place in Brooklyn, since it was closest.

The mood in Steve's apartment was quiet and tired. It had been two days since Alice appeared in Times Square.

Bucky sat in the seat beside Steve, his sandwich held aloft in his metal hand and his phone in the other hand, as he looked over a map of New York City. On the other side of the table Nat had tilted her phone away from Steve, so he knew she was probably checking morgue and emergency room reports, or following up on her theory that Alice might have left the city. Sam watched Steve with a concerned furrow in his brow.

Steve, meanwhile, was contemplating making an appearance on TV. It would get his face out there and hopefully Alice would see it. But he wasn't sure if it would work: he'd been paranoid for almost a week after he woke up in the future, suspicious that it was all a HYDRA trick. He felt grateful for Amaya's _Alice, Come Home_ movement, which had swept across the city, but he wasn't sure that would work either. Where was home, for Alice?

He chewed his sandwich. They had 24/7 coverage set up around Alice's old apartment building, as well as Steve's old building, with F.R.I.D.A.Y. analyzing each person who so much as walked past.

Steve scratched his beard, contemplating a shower before they set off again, and gazed out the window. For a moment he just stared blankly, but then he noticed a faint haze in the distance. He rubbed his eyes. But then he realized that the faint haze was darkening into a plume of smoke. He was pretty sure it was coming from Queens.

"Guys…" he said, rising out of his chair, but at the same moment all of their phones started ringing with F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s alert call. Sam was first to hit the green _active _button on his screen, which normally led to a debrief from the AI, but instead Tony picked up:

"- got multiple attacks in the city!" Tony's tense, slightly crackly voice rang out from Sam's phone.

"What?" Sam asked, scrambling to his feet.

"It's the Infinity Cult, we've got four - no, _five _separate attacks across New York. I'm looking at a ship full of aliens in Midtown but there's also reports from Queens, the Bronx, Jersey, and, yep, just had another one in from Brooklyn. They must be coordinating their attacks, looks like they're going after civilians and infrastructure."

"They must know all the Avengers are in NYC," Nat said as her fingers flew across her phone. "They've turned their focus to us, and they're trying to draw us out."

"Suit up," Tony urged, and Steve realized that the faint rushing noise in the background of the call was wind shear - he was in the Iron Man armor already. "Even if this is some kind of trap, we've got to get out there. Wanda and the kid are in Queens already, Bruce and Hope are booking it to the Bronx, Clint's going with Strange to Jersey, and I'm tackling Midtown with Vision. We're short staffed with the rest of those assholes off in space, so _please _tell me you guys are in Brooklyn."

"We are," said Nat as she rose out of her chair and went to the duffle bag she'd brought with her. "I just sent an order to deploy my agents, so they can provide backup wherever needed."

"Alright, I gotta" - a tinny explosion boomed through Sam's phone speakers - "I gotta go!"

What had been a relatively calm meal turned into scrambling, hunting for uniforms and tugging them on in Steve's dining room. Steve strode to his hallway closet, where his uniform lay packed away in a box with Mjolnir on top of it, but Natasha held out a hand.

"You're retired, Steve. You don't have to be a part of this, I know you want to get back on the search."

In the corner, Bucky loaded his rifle.

Steve met Nat's surprisingly calm green eyes. "No way I'm letting you guys head into a fight with no backup. Besides, you and I both know that this must be the Infinity Cult's big attack, the one you've been waiting for - we put a stop to this and end them for good, then we can get back to the search in peace."

Natasha hesitated a moment, reading his gaze, before she gave him a sharp nod and turned to zip up the back of her uniform.

Steve drew in a steadying breath, then headed for his closet.

* * *

Alice was sitting in the darkness of the apartment, her hands covering her face, when she heard a _blast _outside. She flinched, thinking of bombs and air raids, and when her initial instinct to flee ebbed she ran to open the window and look up and down the street.

A black pillar of smoke rose out of Brooklyn Heights. Alice's brow furrowed, and a moment later she saw some kind of metallic vehicle whizzing through the air, raining down blasts of white light on the sandstone buildings blocks away. She could just make out the shape of some kind of _being _piloting the vehicle. The aircraft swerved, roaring in the direction of Alice's building, and she heard screams as the teenage baseball team up the road scattered and ran for cover. The glowing projectiles lobbed down from the aircraft hit the ground with bone-shaking explosions, and in the distance the distinctive rattle of gunfire rang out.

Alice's mind spun for a moment as she watched devastation unfurl around her, before her fingers clenched on the windowsill and a calmness fell over her features.

This wasn't a situation that required spies, or singers. This was a situation that called for _soldiers._

* * *

The Infinity Cult attack team in Brooklyn had descended on the built-up Borough Hall area, blasting everything in sight with photon cannons that Steve was pretty sure came from the Kree empire, though he was hardly an expert. The team themselves were a mix of creatures from across the galaxy: three dozen aliens, some humanoid, some completely, well, alien. As Steve and the others sprinted up the street toward them, he spotted a short alien with gravelly orange skin wielding a scythe, an identical pair of pale-skinned creatures that looked a bit like overlarge monkeys, and a group of aliens marching like a Roman phalanx, mostly humanoid apart from the hard ridges on their cheekbones and their glowing eyes.

They had two aircraft: a large speeder that soared over Brooklyn, raining down explosives, and a smaller drone-like craft that appeared to target body heat.

The rampaging cultists snarled when Steve and the others showed up, and screamed at them for being _fate-meddlers _and _traitors_. The good thing was that their appearance stopped the cultists from shooting at everything and anyone else. The bad news was that all their firepower was suddenly focused on the Avengers.

Steve slipped into the fight as if he'd never left it. The moment the cultists' attention turned to him and his team he hurled Mjolnir, sending the phalanx scattering, then without breaking his stride ran forward to drive his boot into the knee of a huge metallic-looking alien, who roared and swung a fist down at Steve. He rolled, keeping up his momentum, and kicked the creature's other knee.

Civilians screamed and took off running, using the sudden shift in focus to get clear. Steve and the others didn't have enough people to manage the civilian evacuation - they barely had enough people to manage the fight, four against almost forty was pushing it - so Steve hoped local law enforcement had had training for alien invasions. Smoke poured onto the street from the damage the Infinity Cult sect had already done, obscuring visibility and making Steve's throat itch. The aliens didn't seem bothered. Steve could barely hear his own fast breaths over the ricocheting explosions and scorching firepower ripping through the air, and the roars of the aliens.

A tall, grey skinned alien that reminded Steve of Ebony Maw snared Natasha in one long arm and used the other hand to flick the safety off some kind of grenade. "_Die with me, and seal the balance_!" he shrieked in an awful voice.

Steve vaulted over a shattered bollard and dove at the pair of them, yanking Natasha free and sending them tumbling across the pavement. Steve's stomach lurched as the grenade-like device let out a high-pitched beeping, much too close -

Sam dropped down from the sky, shield raised, just as the alien's explosive went off with a blinding flash. Steve felt the heat and noise of it wash over him, but when he squinted one eye open he saw from the scorch marks across Sam's shield that he'd protected them from the worst of it. The tall grey alien lay blackened and lifeless on the pavement.

"Scatter!" Natasha cried, rolling to her feet. "We're too much of a target!"

"Thanks Sam," Steve panted as he pushed upright and followed Natasha's instructions.

Moments later the shield whirled past Steve and he grabbed it on instinct, using it to batter one of the pale monkey-like creatures aside before flinging it up when he felt Sam's shadow fall over him. Steve and Sam traded off the shield, tossing it from the sky to the street, shearing through alien limbs and deflecting blasts.

They had to keep moving, since the cultists had made their way into the buildings surrounding the streets, using the cover to fire down at the small group of Avengers. They were in a bad spot - outnumbered and surrounded with the element of surprise against them. Steve worked with Mjolnir to chip away the cultists' advantage, hurling it at them and occasionally (when he felt it was safe - visibility was awful) bringing down bolts of lightning.

From the comms, Steve couldn't really tell how the other battles were going. He heard shouts and grunts over the shared line, the occasional called-out instruction and warning, but they were all too involved to give much of an update. Sirens blared all around them as the city and its emergency services reeled, trying to keep up. The Infinity Cult had unleashed all their forces to divide and conquer the Avengers. And it was kind of working. They hadn't been prepared for an attack.

A massive metal fist materialised out of the smoke and smashed Steve in the face, laying him flat on his back with a grunt. He felt blood trickle out from under the edge of his cowl. The lumbering, metallic alien let out a jeering laugh. Steve opened his palm, and three seconds later Mjolnir flew into his hand. The metallic alien's eyes widened a moment before Steve hurled the hammer at his chest, sending him flying back. The ground shuddered with the violence of another explosion.

"_Damn_," Natasha cursed on comms. "Sam, you have to try to pin down that speeder - see if you can lure it to my location, I've stolen one of their photon cannons."

"Working on it. Just - one - second!"

Steve heard a metallic whir and spun to catch the shield as it ricocheted out of the sky, using his momentum to slam the Vibranium disc into the head of a lavender-skinned alien with pointed ears. He jumped, spun, and threw the shield at another group of cultists which had coalesced. But one of them looked up as he threw and fired a blast at the shield, sending it skittering away down a sidestreet. Sam was too distracted in the air to magnetically recall it, and Steve had another weapon closer at hand. Mjolnir zipped back into his grip.

The smoke clogged thick in the air now, like early morning fog. Steve couldn't see further than ten feet. He heard footsteps and spun to see Bucky dart past with his gun raised, blood trickling from his lip.

Steve turned just in time to duck another devastating punch as the metallic alien lurched once more out of the smoke toward him. He swung Mjolnir and it _cracked _through the huge creature's stone helmet, finally dropping him like a sack of bricks. Three more cultists swarmed forward. Steve turned, managing his space, and sensed another figure approaching out of the corner of his eye, moving surely and purposefully through the smoke. He held up his bare arm to fend off one of the oncoming cultists, wincing as their glowing club cracked against his arm and jarred his whole body, at the same time swivelling to get eyes on the approaching figure. He smashed the first cultist with Mjolnir, sent the second flying with a kick to the chest, crumpled the third with a headbutt, turned - and froze where he stood.

Alice appeared out of the smoke like a vision. She held an aluminum baseball bat that glinted in the firelight, and the Vibranium shield was mounted on her left forearm. She wore civilian clothing: jeans, a hooded jacket, and sneakers. Her hair fell in wisps around her face, framing her ice-cold eyes.

Black smoke swirled around Steve and photon blasts went scorching by his head, but he couldn't move a muscle.

The spell broke when Alice's eyes tracked over to him, and without a change in her expression she cocked her arm and _hurled _the shield toward him. He fumbled it, having to glance down to keep it from clattering to the ground, and when he looked up again Alice had gripped her baseball bat in two hands, wound up, and smashed it into the head of one of the Xandarian cultists. The cultist's scarlet eyes rolled up in his head before he sagged to the ground, semi-conscious.

"_Moser is on the field_!" Natasha called into the comms, and having someone else confirm what he was seeing spurred Steve into action.

He launched back into the fight, moving faster than ever before: striking, weaving, disabling, fighting his way toward Alice. Mjolnir flickered around him, trailing sparks. He, Bucky, and Natasha coalesced around Alice, slamming cultists away from her as Sam offered cover from the skies.

Alice didn't throw herself headlong into the fight. She used the smoke to keep herself hidden, edging around the fighting before she darted in, whirling with her baseball bat when the cultists least expected it, then dodging away again. If she was surprised to see Steve, Bucky, and the others there, she did not show it on her face.

Her main focus seemed to be the civilians. The third time she approached a cultist only to have them blasted away by gunfire or Mjolnir before she got close, she changed tactics, hunting out the civilians hiding under cars and in building eaves and directing them down the side street she'd emerged from, shouting instructions at them. The baseball bat never left her hand.

Steve was nearly twice impaled by one of the cultist's scythes, because he'd completely lost his focus. Almost the entirety of his attention was fixed on Alice: where she was, who she was fighting, what she was doing. He knew the others had focused on her too - Sam rocketed back and forth overhead, Bucky had found a vantage point on top of a truck and was picking off anything that got within ten feet of her, and Natasha made a bright, noisy distraction at the other end of the street as she brought down the alien speeder in a flaming wreck. Together they dispatched the cultists with brutal efficiency. Questions poured in over the comms from the others about Natasha's announcement that Alice had appeared, but none of them had time to answer.

The rest of the fight seemed to take hours. Sweat rolled down the back of Steve's neck and terror prickled across his skin, compounded by a sense that he was totally out of control. But in truth, the battle only lasted probably another minute and a half.

The last three cultists in a last ditch effort dove for their weapons stash, reaching for the highest-grade explosives. Steve wound up Mjolnir like he'd seen Thor do and sent it flying one last time, knocking the cultists away from the box. Natasha dropped down and jammed her Widows Bites into one of their necks, and Sam swooped over and dispatched the other two with a couple of well-placed shots.

And then stillness. Sirens wailed around them and smoke still billowed, but the bodies of the Infinity Cult aliens were still on the ground, and no more firepower rent the air.

"We're clear," Nat panted, setting her hands on her knees.

Steve whirled. He'd lost track of Alice in the final few seconds of the fight, and for a terrified second he thought she'd run again.

But then the smoke eddied in the breeze and there she stood: bat in hand, her chest heaving as she looked around at the carnage. And then her eyes fell on him.

They stood thirty yards apart, staring at each other.

The world seemed to go quiet. Steve knew ambulances and fire trucks and police cars were screaming through the city and that the other fights were still wrapping up over the comms, but he didn't hear any of it. He only stared at Alice, watching her. It felt unreal and impossible for her to just be _standing there_ after she'd been gone so long; color in her cheeks and her green eyes darting over his face.

Finally, Alice spoke:

"It's really you, Steve?" Her voice was hopeful, but also wary.

Steve nearly broke his cowl with how fast he tore it off his head. He stared back at her with mussed hair and wide eyes. "It's me." His mouth opened and closed. "Alice-"

And then they were moving, each of them breaking into a run toward each other and their feet pounding on the ground until they collided - Steve swept Alice right off her feet, his arms wrapped around her and his face pressed against hers. Alice's arms wound around him, first gripping tight, then sliding up, up, until she cupped his face with both hands and leaned back a little to stare at him. Steve held her tight, trying to convince himself she was real. He stared at her, at the strands of fine pale hair stuck to her sweaty forehead, her wide green eyes, the sweep of her cheekbones and the way her mouth opened and closed. Her palms were warm on his skin.

"I can hardly believe it," she murmured.

"It's me, it's me," he repeated in a thunderstruck tone, hardly sure what he was saying, but then her eyes glinted and she swooped in to cut him off with a kiss.

Steve had been turning on the spot, slowing the momentum of their crash into one another, but when her lips pressed against his he finally stilled, holding her probably too tight to be comfortable as his eyes closed and he lost himself wholly to the kiss. Alice's fingers curled around the edges of his bearded jaw and to the back of his head, holding him close.

Steve kissed her clumsily at first, overwhelmed, before the familiar breathless slide of her lips had him pressing closer, more urgently, trying to pour every ounce of love and grief and relief into the kiss where he was sure words would fail him. He felt Alice's heart thundering under his palms and was sure his lungs were about to give out, reminding him of their very first kiss. _I'd kiss you if you had shark's teeth._

The memory tugged at his heart and he slowed the intensity, sliding one hand up Alice's back and slowly, slowly pulling away. He opened his eyes to see her staring at him in disbelief, tears in her eyes. Her breath fanned over his lips.

"Steve," she whispered, his name barely audible on her lips. Her feet were yet to touch the ground.

"I know," he murmured back. "Alice." He treasured her name, treasured the way the sound of it in his voice made her eyes gleam.

"Hey, troublemaker," came a shaky voice from a few feet away. Alice's eyes widened and she whirled, Steve setting her down and trying to control his breathing.

Bucky stood a few feet away with his gun in one hand, watching the pair of them with bright eyes. Alice squeezed Steve's wrist and then darted forward to throw her arms around the metal-armed soldier.

"_Bucky_," she said croakily, and Steve realized that she was shaking. Bucky dropped his gun and wrapped his arms around Alice, his eyes squeezed shut.

"It's good to have you back, Al," he said quietly.

Steve stood dumbly a few feet away, still staring. He was afraid that if he closed his eyes even to blink, Alice would vanish again. Moments later Alice and Bucky broke apart and her eyes were back on him again, just as wide and disbelieving as before. Steve knew he looked different - the beard wasn't half of it, there was the new uniform and the haircut and the _years_.

Steve opened and closed his mouth a few times, overwhelmed, and then let out a shaky laugh that surprised him. Alice's mouth tugged up in a smile, too, and she gravitated towards him. They reached out and fumbled for each other's hands, gripping tight. Steve laughed again, staring at her, and then realized that tears had begun to spill down his cheeks.

Alice's smile became small and sad, and she reached up to cup his face with one hand, swiping her thumb over the tears. Steve couldn't speak, couldn't move, could only stand there staring down at the love of his life as she pressed her warm hand to his face, wiping away his tears.

"I hate to break up the moment," Bucky said, still sounding wrecked. "But we should get out of public."

Steve looked up, vision blurry, to see emergency services and civilians encroaching back onto the former battlefield, half of them wielding cellphones. _Right._ Steve had completely forgotten where they were.

Sam dropped down to the road with a whine of engines, beaming from ear to ear as his wings folded up into his wing pack. Alice stared at him. "You guys go, Nat called in a car two streets over - we'll clear up here."

Steve met Sam's eyes, double checking - and Sam just gave him a nod, still grinning.

Steve glanced down and met Alice's eyes. "Coming?" he asked softly.

"With you?" Her shaky expression turned into a smile, and she took his hand. "Anywhere."


	60. Chapter Fifty One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't get a chance to say so last week, but I just want to acknowledge the life and work of Chadwick Boseman, not only an incredible leading man in the MCU but also just a wonderful human being in life. If you can, donate to your local colon cancer charities & also foundations for young POC creators. Rest in Power, Chadwick Boseman x

Steve, Alice, and Bucky made it to the dark sedan in a flurry of simultaneous questions, answers, exclamations, and tears.

"It's _true_," Alice kept saying, "everything I read about you, and the future, it's _true-_"

"Yes," Steve responded, "We're alive, Alice, we made it here and you're _safe-_"

"- Asgardian god called Bragi, we only just found out about it-"

"- _knew _I wasn't imagining things! Whenever I had a big performance I always felt like I was being watched, and ever since I was young I had these dreams-"

"- gone, can't get you again-"

"- so sorry I ran, I didn't understand-"

"- been searching for you, the Avengers have been working day and night-"

"- the hell are the _Avengers_?"

Bucky started the car as Alice and Steve tumbled into the back seat, neither unwilling to let go of the other, each of them offering tangled explanations. Neither of them saw the cardboard sign across the road which read _ALICE, COME HOME. _Bucky saw it, and smiled to himself as he started the engine and drove off.

Steve was sure he missed stuff out, but over about fifteen minutes he and Bucky managed to give a fairly comprehensive description of both of their confusing pasts, and everything that had happened since they arrived in the future. Alice's eyes went round as they spoke, but she understood now: it made so much more sense coming from them rather than the strange, impersonal articles she'd read on the computer. Her heart broke as they told her about how they had each fallen in the war, and about the decades of violence and torture Bucky had suffered. Her eyebrows rose as Steve told her the story of the Avengers, with all its triumphant highs and devastating lows.

They told her about Bragi, and Alice began to make sense of the inexplicable moments from her past (an impossible breath of wind in a closed-up church, golden lights behind her eyes as she dreamed, the sensation of a _presence _watching over her).

Bucky and Steve both looked exhausted, which made sense when she learned they'd been searching for her non stop since she appeared in Times Square. They also both wore strange uniforms, and were covered in soot and dirt like her. They'd brought the scent of smoke into the car.

When they were done the mood in the car quietened, as Bucky drove in circles around Brooklyn. The weight of everything seemed to press down on them: the people they'd lost, the time apart, the weight of grief and years. Alice rested her head on Steve's shoulder, and he put his arm around her. Bucky glanced at them in the rear mirror. Weariness settled like mist in the car.

Alice let out a breath. She had no idea what came next. But she'd made it to Steve, and she hadn't allowed herself to imagine that ever since she'd opened her eyes in Times Square. Dear, sad-eyed, bearded Steve, who had spent days looking for her. Who had spent _years _without her. _What has the world done to you? _

"I'm so sorry." Alice said quietly into the silence of the car. Bucky looked up in the rear mirror again, brows furrowed.

Steve let out a breath which fanned over her hair, and his arm tightened around her. "You don't need to be sorry, Alice. This wasn't your fault. This wasn't the fault of anyone but Bragi." He leaned back against his head rest. "I'm not going to waste another second on sorrow."

And in the warmth of his embrace, Alice smiled. Because that resolute tone sounded just like the Steve she knew.

* * *

Tony stood on the hull of the smoking airship he'd brought down on Madison Avenue, checking his HUD for any other signs of alien life in the area. He was pretty sure he'd gotten them all - there'd been twenty cultists pillaging the streets in Midtown and ten on the airship, which had all been left to him after Vision went to help out Wanda and Peter in Queens when the cultists there took over a police station. And Tony wasn't known for his humility, but he had to say he'd done a pretty decent job, given that it was his first time back in the fight with new armor, and one arm pretty much out of order.

He nodded to himself. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., where am I needed?"

"It appears the other strike teams have effectively handled their breakouts, boss. The Infinity Cult attack has been stopped."

"Good stuff. You know what to do now - let's get started on cleanup." He patched into the comms. "Alright Avengers, head count?"

He jumped down from the airship and helped coordinate the emergency response as the others sounded off over the comms.

"We're helping contain a fire here in Jersey," Clint reported first, sounding breathless, "but the aliens are down."

"The Bronx is clear," Hope Van Dyne reported. "We're good."

"We've got a few escapees on the loose heading north," Wanda called, "but Vision found their dropship so they can't get far."

"They stole a school bus," Peter said with a little too much glee.

"Clear in Brooklyn," Natasha confirmed.

"Okay," Clint said, "But Nat, didn't you say you guys saw Moser?"

Tony paused. He hadn't heard that, he'd been flat out in Midtown. "What?"

"Oh we did more than see her," Nat said, and Tony realized there was a smile in her voice. "We got her back."

There was a sudden clamor over the comms as the other Avengers exclaimed and asked a flurry of questions. Tony himself had stopped in the middle of the street.

"What do you mean you got her back?" he added to the tumult of questions. "Is Cap still on comms? Where are they?"

"I don't know," Natasha said quellingly, though she still sounded like she was smiling. "I called in a car for her, Steve, and Bucky to get them out of the way since they… kind of made a scene. From what I can tell she's fine, though, she didn't get hurt in the battle-"

"She was in the battle?" Bruce questioned.

"Yes, she apparently took it upon herself to give us a hand. But like I said she's fine, and knows who she is and who Steve and Bucky are. I'm sure we'll hear from them soon."

"I wouldn't count on it," Sam laughed. "They've got eighty years of catching up to do."

"Either way," Nat said. "Let's clear up here and debrief. That's a wrap on both our missions, for now."

Grinning, Tony flipped back his face plate and went to go chat with the congregating firefighters.

* * *

_CNN Breaking News @cnnbrk _Tweet:

_Watch:_ _a video posted just a minute ago appears to show the end of the #InfinityCult attack in Brooklyn, most notably the apparent reunion of Steve Rogers #CaptainAmerica and Alice Moser #TheSiren_

* * *

_@bowhip _Tweet reply to _CNN Breaking News @cnnbrk:_

_The footage is shaky as hell and there's no audio, but this video is everything we've been waiting for for days - no wonder it's going viral! After years apart and days of searching, this is so much more wonderful than I could have expected. #Aliceishome_

* * *

Bucky drove the car around for another twenty minutes before they finally went back to Steve's place in Brooklyn. It was closest, and the press hadn't figured out his address yet.

Alice didn't say much as they led her up the stairs to Steve's apartment and opened the door. She felt a little out of place in her stolen clothes while both Steve and Bucky wore in rather dramatic uniforms. Once inside, Steve headed straight for the dining table and Bucky went into the kitchen, as if they'd come up with a battle plan without speaking about it. Alice stalled in the doorway.

Steve's apartment was nice. It wasn't anything like his old place he'd shared with his mom: this space was open and filled with light. Framed drawings and photographs hung on the walls, and after a moment Alice recognized Steve's style in a few of the drawings. The place, though different, felt familiar to her; this casual, comfortable decor was just like Steve, with no posturing or pretensions of grandeur. He had a record player on a dark wooden bench near the couch - _he never would've been able to afford one of those back in… _she couldn't say _back in Brooklyn_ because they were _in _Brooklyn. _Back in the past._ It made her head spin to think of the world she'd been in just a few days ago as part of the past.

"Alice?" She looked up to see Steve hovering by the dining table, looking back at her. His brows were pinched with concern. He'd peeled off the top part of his uniform, leaving him in a dark undershirt. Her eyes kept getting caught on his beard - it changed the shape of his face, made him seem older and darker. He'd never been able to grow one before the war. "Are you okay?"

"Just…" her eyes roved across the apartment again, taking in the tall windows through which poured in warm afternoon light. After a few moments she realized she was yet to finish her sentence. She blew out a breath. "It's a lot, Steve."

His eyes softened. "I know." Bucky re emerged from the kitchen, still in full uniform and now carrying a green fabric bag with a first-aid cross on it. Steve nodded and held a hand out for a bag before glancing back at Alice. "Let's make sure you're okay."

Her eyebrows raised and she spread her arms. "I'm fine! You two are the ones who were…" she thought back to the glimpses she'd seen on the smoky street: Steve and Bucky flipping, dodging, grappling with the strangest creatures she'd ever seen and weathering blows that would put her out of commission for weeks.

Bucky smiled. "We're pretty durable, Al."

"Well, so am I," she replied stubbornly.

Bucky grinned at her, then something in his pocket beeped and he glanced down to pull out a phone - Alice had gotten used to seeing them around, but watching Bucky pull one out of his pocket and look at the screen so casually gave her a strange sense of surrealism.

Bucky let out a sigh. "I'd better head back to HQ, they're going to need all hands on deck since apparently there's still some cultists on the loose."

"I'm not going," Steve said abruptly. Alice smiled.

Bucky rolled his eyes. "As if I'd let you go." He shoved his phone in his pocket and then strode across the room to where Alice still stood by the door. He reached out and pulled her into a hug, which she gladly accepted. "I have to head out, Al. Sorry."

"It's alright," Alice said. She smiled into his shoulder. The metal arm felt a little strange, but Bucky seemed comfortable with it so she wasn't going to bring it up. "War's over. We're going to have plenty of time to catch up."

Bucky's arms tightened around her incrementally. "We sure will. Look after that idiot for me in the meantime."

"I thought he was _durable_," she murmured.

"Well, you and I know him better than that." Bucky pulled away, his eyes shining, and with one last squeeze of her shoulder and a grin back at Steve, walked out the door.

Steve had sat in one of his dining room chairs, hand resting on the first aid kit, watching her with a calm kind of patience. He'd clearly sensed her hesitation and was willing to let her go at her own pace.

Alice allowed her gaze to drift across the room a few more times, familiarising herself with the space. She still hadn't gone further than five steps into the apartment. When her gaze landed back on Steve, who was now using a cloth to wipe grime off his face, he smiled at her.

"Hi."

Alice couldn't help a small smile in reply. "Hi."

"I like your clothes," he commented.

"They're not mine."

"I know," he said with a wry smile. "You're pretty good at stealing."

"Thank you." Alice slowly started edging closer into the apartment. Her stolen boots landed softly on the floorboards, and she peered around as she paced forward. "I like your house."

"Yeah, I've… I've been here a while. It's good to have my own space."

"It's nice," Alice murmured. She stood on the other side of the table from him now. She scratched the back of her neck. _I launched myself into Steve's arms and kissed him like I was dying less than an hour ago. Why do I feel so shy all of a sudden?_

Steve still sat calmly in his chair, watching her, before his brow suddenly furrowed. "Oh, I've got…" he dug into his pocket before pulling out something small and glittering. "I think you dropped this."

Alice stepped closer and took the item on instinct, recognising it as her blue and black hairpin the second her fingers closed around it. "Oh, thank you, I-" she paused, staring at the pin, her mind churning and one hand halfway to her hair. She'd specifically noticed the pin was missing when she recollected herself after arriving in the future. "I…" she looked at Steve with wide eyes. "How…?"

He smiled slightly sadly. "We have a lot to catch up on."

"But this was-"

"Yeah."

"So you were-"

"Yeah. Bucky and I kinda missed that part out when we told you about Thanos. Remember I said, about the time travel?"

"And you didn't-"

"Yeah. I'm sorry, Alice. I wasn't fast enough."

Alice sat down hard in the chair across from Steve. "It's not your fault," she whispered, echoing his words from the car. "I'm here now. But…" she glanced down at the pin again, tilting it so the jewels glittered in the light. "You've had so long without me. I'm sorry, it's not fair."

"I think," Steve reached out to lay his hand open on the table between them. "That you and I ought to stop apologising to each other."

Alice looked up to see him smiling at her. He looked so different from the last time she'd seen him: a different uniform, a beard, a different haircut, the weight of years in his eyes. But he was still _Steve_, so earnest and present that it made her stomach flip. She reached out and took his hand.

He arched an eyebrow and tapped his other hand on the first aid kit. "Now will you let me look at you?"

She let out a breathy laugh. "Fine."

She sat quietly as Steve unpacked the first aid kit, bringing out standard first-aid-kit items and some others that she didn't recognize. He took her temperature, checked her blood pressure with a cuff, counted her pulse and respiration rate, and wrote it all down on a scrap of notepaper.

"Sorry about all this," he said as he shone a penlight into her eyes. "Bruce said we'd need to get your vitals when we found you, to make sure Bragi's magic didn't leave any adverse effects."

"Bruce?"

"Bruce Banner," he explained with a smile. "One of my teammates. You'll know him when you see him, he's enormous and green."

"Oh."

"The other musicians were all fine in the end so you probably will be too, but a few of them had some pre-existing problems. Were you hurt, before…?" He swallowed. "I know there was some blood-"

Right. If he'd been there at the performance hall that night, he'd have seen the trail of blood and wounded men she'd left behind her. And he said they'd found her white performance dress: it had been soaked in scarlet blood.

Alice pressed her lips together. "That blood… wasn't mine. Mostly." She fought for control over her expression, but then she looked up and it was Steve, just Steve, so she allowed herself to feel the echoes of horror and fear that had surged through her on that run through the performance building.

"I'm sorry about Otto," Steve said, his voice heavy.

Alice didn't look away. She took Steve's hand and squeezed it. "So am I. He - he fought back, and they killed him. His fighting back probably saved my life."

"He'd be really glad you made it out safe." Steve squeezed her hand in return. "He was a good man."

Alice nodded, not able to speak, and for a few moments they simply sat hand in hand.

"Oh!" Steve suddenly exclaimed, and his hand tightened on hers. Alice looked up to see his eyes suddenly brightening. "I can't believe I haven't told you yet." His other hand rose to her elbow as if to steady her. "Alice. _Jil__í is alive._"

Alice frowned and leaned back. "No, she-"

But Steve's bright expression turned into a smile. "I was surprised too. She wasn't killed in Vienna, she - she was taken to a concentration camp, and she _survived_." Alice's eyes went wide. "After the war she ended up in Poland for a while, before Peggy found her. They became very close friends. She ran the search for you for almost a decade, before moving to the States with her husband. She was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent for years - the SSR became S.H.I.E.L.D.- and now she lives in San Francisco. She's _alive_."

Alice's mouth opened and closed. She didn't know how to process this. "I… _still_?"

Steve grinned. "Peggy once told me that death was afraid of Jilí. I believe it. She vanished in the Decimation so she's still only technically 100 years old."

"Only," Alice breathed, her head spinning. Her gaze drifted away and her expression hardened. "So they did take her away after all. That means… I gave up on her. I didn't look for her."

Steve's hand tightened on her elbow. "_No_. That's not your fault, you had no way of knowing where she'd gone. And you did search for her, didn't you? You exhausted every option. Jilí knows that, and she…" he shook his head slowly. "She understands, Alice. All she ever wanted was to find _you_."

A tear spilled down Alice's cheek. "I can't believe it." She met Steve's gaze again, still wide-eyed, and a smile began to flicker at her mouth. "She's really alive?"

"She really is," Steve grinned.

Alice let out a breath which turned into a shaky laugh. Everything Steve had told her felt like blooms of light in her mind: _alive. Husband. Close friends with Peggy. Moved to the States. _Jilí had been dead in Alice's mind so long that the idea of her living such a long and colorful life made her heart feel like it was exploding.

"Can I see her?"

Steve's eyes glinted. "I don't think there's any way you could stop Jilí from seeing _you_."

Alice beamed, and another tear spilled down her cheek. _Alive._

Steve's hand grazed up and down Alice's arm, steadying. "So no more injuries then?" He asked gently.

Alice's other hand rose to the side of her chest unconsciously, and Steve raised his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes and lifted the side of her shirt to show him the fading bruise on her ribcage.

Steve's eyes shadowed and he reached to graze his fingers against her bruised skin. His fingers were warm but they still made her shiver as he gently pressed against the area, watching until Alice flinched and winced.

"Sorry," he said. "I think you might've cracked a rib, though."

"Yes, I know I did."

His eyebrows lifted.

Alice shrugged and pushed her shirt back down. "It is getting better though - I'm breathing fine now. There's also my knee-" she looked down and hesitated. She'd have to take her trousers off to show him. She looked back up. "But I'm fine, Steve, really. I'm not like you and Bucky, I don't stubbornly soldier on in pain just to show off how manly and brave I am-" Steve's eyebrows hiked up his forehead as she spoke, making her smile. "I really am fine, I promise. Just a bit, um. Tired."

"Of course," he said. "Are you… would you…" his eyes darted.

"Can I sleep here?" she finished for him.

He let out a breath. "Yes, if you want. I can organize something else if you'd prefer, but-"

"I'd like to stay here," she cut him off again. "If you'll have me."

He smiled: that dopey, helpless smile that Alice had only ever seen rarely, but which made her heart pound. "Yeah," he said. "I'll have you." Something glittered in his eyes. "I am your husband, after all, it'd be pretty poor form to turf you out on the street."

"Speaking of which, did you tell _the whole world _that we got married?" Alice asked. Their hands were still tangled and their knees pressed together as they sat side by side.

The tips of Steve's ears burned. "I… I might have." He rubbed his bearded jaw. "Sorry about that, I-"

"_And _the Ulysses thing," Alice continued in mock-outrage, "and the whole spy thing-"

"That one's on Peggy," Steve laughed. "In the 70s, too, so I had nothing to do with it."

Alice's pretend outrage faded a little at the mention of her now-dead friend. "The 1970s," she echoed. The 'seventies' she was used to hearing about were the 1870s. "Fifty years ago." She shook her head. "The _past_."

Steve watched her. "It'll take you a while to get your head around it."

"How long did it take you?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it. "I'm still getting used it, to be honest. Living in the future. I think you'll like it here though, there's - oh!" He let go of her hands to reach into his pocket for his own phone, then leaned over to a nearby cabinet to grab a tangled white cord. He connected one end of the cord into his phone, then untangled it enough to reveal two small, round circles. "Here, put these in your ears."

Alice had seen this done on the streets of the city, so she cautiously took the things from Steve and poked them into her ears. They muffled the ambient sound around her a little.

"This feels weird," she told him.

He smiled as he tapped away at his phone. For a few moments nothing happened: Alice sat, underwhelmed, with plastic things in her ears.

And then she heard _music._ Her eyes shot wide open as a playful piano intro shimmered to life in her ears, the sound so clear and so close that she almost looked around to spot the band that had snuck up on her. Moments later a woman's voice crooned through:

"_Say it's only a paper moon, sailing over a cardboard sea…_" the woman's voice was deep, soulful - Alice thought she'd heard the singer before, but never singing _this _song before. Tears sprang to her eyes and her hand lifted to cover her mouth.

"_But it wouldn't be make-believe if you believed in me_."

Steve watched Alice with a smile on his face. Alice let out a shaky laugh. "How?" she said loudly. Steve laughed, inaudible over the music.

When she finally tugged the headphones out of her ears, Steve said: "The minute I saw what they'd done with music technology these days I wanted to show you." He took the headphones as Alice offered them, her eyes still round. He looked down with a frown. "There's so much I've wanted to show you and talk to you about… but it's all slipping my mind."

Alice reached out to take his hand. "Well you _are_ an old man now," she said gently. "Forgetfulness is to be expected."

He looked up with a lopsided smile and gleaming eyes. "I actually am older than you now. Years older."

She squeezed his hand, cocking her head as she looked at him. "Oh, Steve." She reached out to stroke a thumb across his bearded jaw. She kept getting distracted by it. "You do look a _bit _different. Do you feel older than me?"

He let out a shaky breath. "I feel a hundred years old."

She smiled, and her thumb ventured up to stroke his cheek. "What a coincidence. So do I."

* * *

They talked for hours. Steve got changed out of his uniform and they migrated around the apartment almost unconsciously, talking about the life they'd had, and Bragi, and what Steve had been up to since he opened his eyes in the future.

Steve occasionally glanced at his phone, once or twice sending off a message. "Just Bucky," he explained when he saw her curious glance. "He's with the Avengers, they want to make sure you're okay." She felt touched at how much these strangers seemed to care.

He showed her his phone and computer, much to her amazement, and he shook his head at her as she showed him how she'd figured out how to use computers on her own.

"It's very intuitive!" she told him.

"I know, right? We're not idiots," he said with the air of one settling a years-old grievance.

He also showed her Mjolnir, which he'd dropped by the door like an old umbrella when they first arrived. He picked it up and swung it around once or twice as Alice watched with an arched brow and a mug of steaming tea in her hands, then he looked from the hammer to Alice a few times with a thoughtful look on his face.

"You want to hold it?" he asked.

She frowned. "It's not going to let off any lightning bolts or anything, is it? I saw what it did to those aliens."

"No," he laughed. "Not unless you want it to."

She contemplated Mjolnir a few more moments, eyeing the inscribed runes, before shrugging. "I'm good." She sipped her tea and turned back to explore Steve's living room some more.

"That's what Nat said," she thought she heard Steve mutter, but when she looked over her shoulder he'd already set down Mjolnir again and was heading for his own mug of tea.

At one point Alice's stomach let out a large gurgle, and they went to the kitchen laughing to make something to eat (All Steve had left in his cupboards was pasta, which he ended up almost burning because he was so distracted by talking).

They stayed close, trading casual touches, reaching for each other's hands as they talked about their losses and moments of grief. But they hadn't kissed since that rather dramatic one after the battle, and Steve could sense that Alice still clung to some of her icy reserve; she was an excellent actress, but he saw it in the way she fought off her tears, and the careful way she watched him when she thought he wasn't looking. Each shared story and memory brought them closer, but there was still some indefinable distance between them. And there were things Steve couldn't bring himself to say.

Alice couldn't believe they were really having a conversation in the _future_, in Steve's house, both of them alive and safe. She could tell that it was even stranger for him, who had lived years without her.

But though she'd only just opened her eyes in this future, those years weighed heavy on her too.

The conversation, naturally, turned to Tom. They sat on Steve's couch with their empty dinner bowls on the coffee table, as Alice spoke through tears about the brother whose life she had missed. The sun had gone down on the city, making the lights inside the apartment seem warmer.

"I always thought it would be a possibility that he would have to spend the rest of his life without me," Alice said morosely. "I just… didn't picture it like this."

"He might not have gotten to spend his life with you," Steve said carefully, "but he told your story his whole life. The _real_ story, when it came out, of his sister who fought the Nazis." Alice smiled sadly. "He lived a pretty incredible life of his own, too."

Alice's sad smile turned into a beam. "I read about some of it. I always knew he'd go on to do great things. He was like mom and Matthias, like-"

"Like you," Steve added. "I got to talk to Peggy about him, she stayed close with Tom and his family his whole life. She said she saw a lot of you in him."

Alice flushed and then ducked her head to fidget with the end of her sleeve, too overwhelmed to speak. She'd been weathering the sadness of leaving her friends and family behind for the past few days, and had completely overlooked the joy and pride of the lives they'd lived. Sensing her thoughts, Steve reached over to squeeze her hand again.

She looked up and met his eyes. He looked back at her, dark blue eyes clear and earnest. _And what a life Steve has lived, too_. He'd told her about some of it: the Avengers, going on the run, fighting alien armies and making a life for himself in the future.

"You've grown," she said softly.

He smiled, eyes on hers, before something faltered in his expression and he stood up. "I'd, uh, better put these bowls away."

_He's avoiding something_. A look of conflict crossed Steve's expression for a split second as he moved to the coffee table to clear away their bowls, and Alice's heart began to sink. Steve had had years without her. He might not be the Steve that she knew any more. He _felt _like the Steve she knew, but maybe he was keeping something back.

Alice stood and followed him, watching from a few feet away as he took the bowls into the kitchen, set them in his _dishwasher _(another new household appliance for her), and then turned to wipe down his kitchen countertops. They'd been talking for hours about their lives _before_, and Steve's life _now, _though Alice now realized that they mustn't have covered everything. He'd told her about how lost he'd felt, trying to make a place for himself in the future, and the impossible grief he'd tried to weather after the Decimation. He'd told her about his teammates and his friends and how he had slowly told the world about her.

But he was holding something back.

"Tell me," she said.

Steve froze where he was wiping down the bench, then turned, opening and closing his mouth. The tips of his ears had gone red.

_Ah. So that's what this is about_.

Steve swallowed. "To preface this, I thought you were dead."

"That is a pretty solid alibi," Alice said with a small smile, though she couldn't help the nervousness in her voice. She leaned with her arms crossed against the far wall, protecting herself. "Much like the time you thought I was a Nazi. I don't blame you for… trying to move on. If that's what this is about."

Steve reached up to rub the back of his neck, the flush spreading from his ears to his cheeks. "Okay, so I had better tell you everything." Alice felt her stomach sinking. He drew in a breath. "After the Battle of New York and I moved to D.C., Nat started setting me up on dates." Steve avoided her eyes. "I didn't go on any. But for a little while after S.H.I.E.L.D. went down there was this woman called Sharon, er, Carter-"

"Carter? As in...?"

"Yes," Steve said, his eyes flicking to hers. "Peggy's great-niece. We caught up from time to time but we didn't ever make a move until when I was on the run after getting Bucky. We eventually both decided it wasn't a good idea. She wanted to focus on her career in the States, and I was an international fugitive with a pretty complicated history. And after the Decimation…" he sighed. "I don't know. Nat set me up on a few more dates, and I even went on a couple. Figured a few dates out for myself. Not that they went anywhere."

Steve shuffled his feet, letting out another sigh. "I thought I ought to try. Everyone kept telling me I deserved to be happy, deserved to find someone to _be _happy with. So I tried." He shrugged. "Maybe I wasn't good enough at trying. I never was too good with women."

"No, you weren't," Alice said fondly, her arms still crossed. She dropped her chin and looked down at her stolen boots, hugging herself. "Steve, I get it. You've lived a lifetime here in the future. You've seen and done things I couldn't begin to comprehend. And I can't imagine what it's like to have…" her brow furrowed. "To have someone you loved dropped in front of you after years of thinking they were dead. To try to make them understand how much you've ch-changed, and to reconcile old vows you made and to try to figure out what the future might-" her face twisted and her fingers curled into her arms. "I mean, I know we made some plans this Christmas - I mean, you know, the last Christmas, but you don't have to-"

"Alice, wait." There was a different note in Steve's voice now, and Alice looked up to see his eyes on her face, suddenly focused. "I was going to say - after we lost half the universe, I realized… I could move on as much as I wanted, but I could never stop loving you." Tears sprang to Alice's eyes. Steve took a steadying breath. "It was crazy. I had no reasonable expectation of you… you coming back, or anything, but all I knew was that I already had a wife, and I was still in love with her."

Alice's breath hitched and Steve finally moved. He slowly crossed the kitchen, dropping his dishcloth, his eyes on Alice's face. When he reached out to take her hands, Alice hiccuped, then laughed at herself. They'd been talking for hours, but _this _was the conversation she'd been most terrified of.

"Alice," Steve murmured. "I have lived a crazy life since the last time I saw you. I'm older than you now, and I can't pretend I haven't changed. And you… I know what it's like to have to figure yourself out now that the war's over, and I know you need time to… to heal, and grieve. For everything." He drew a deep breath. "All I'm asking is that we _try_."

Alice pressed her lips together, trying to see Steve clearly through her blurry vision.

"Maybe I'm crazy," Steve said, "but I think that even after everything, we're right for each other. And I don't want to give up on that. Not for old time's sake, or even for the sake of the vows we made, but… but because I cannot _wait _for a future with you."

Tears spilled down Alice's cheeks as her face broke open in a brilliant smile, shedding the last of her icy reserve. She threw her arms around Steve's neck and brought his lips to hers.

"So that's a yes?" he checked a few moments later, his hair sticking up.

"Yes, Steve, yes," she beamed. "We'll take it as slow as you like." She drew back a little so she could look him in the eyes. "But you and I have survived long absences before. What's eighty years?"

He smiled. "Nothing."

"Exactly." She kissed both his cheeks, then leaned her forehead against his, her arms looped around his neck and his looped around her waist. "Though let's promise each other to stick around this time. No more absences. I plan to spend my next eighty years, Steve Rogers, right by your side."

* * *

Excerpt from _Good Morning America _broadcast:

"_Continuing on in our discussion about the thwarted Infinity Cult attacks yesterday, which resulted in infrastructure damage but thankfully nothing worse, we can confirm that since the attacks several notable Avengers have __not_ _been seen in public. Steve Rogers, for example-"_

"_Which, Caroline, after the now-viral footage of the end of the Brooklyn battle, I think bodes very well! We've had no official word yet but I feel comfortable in saying that all those people out there hashtagging are right - Alice Moser has, indeed, come home._"

* * *

_Amaya Reyes @amayathehistorian _Tweet:

_For everyone asking, conclusively: yes, I saw the footage! No, I don't know anything that you guys don't! (Also thinking of all my friends and family in NYC, you guys are troopers). I'm hopefully optimistic and I will say I don't think we need to be on the lookout for Alice any more. IMO, #Aliceishome_

* * *

Bucky arrived at the apartment the next morning with a bag full of something called _breakfast burritos._

Alice and Steve met him at the door with matching grins. They'd had an early night - Steve had offered Alice the bed and gone to sleep on the couch, citing what he'd said about giving her space to figure things out, but she'd set him straight by saying _Steve Rogers, we are __married_ _and you own an enormous bed. Stop being a gentleman_!

He'd fallen into bed beside her with a grin and they'd fallen asleep shortly after, both too exhausted for anything more than a tired kiss.

The morning had been a different story.

"You two look happy," Bucky said, after staring at Alice for a few seconds as if confirming she was still real. Steve blushed and Alice grinned, but Bucky stepped inside without any further invitation. "You're about to be happier once you eat these - Al, don't let Steve convince you any different, what they do with food nowadays is _incredible_ and you need to try everything."

"I like the food nowadays," Steve protested, "I just think it's weird that they put cheese in cans." But Alice had already followed Bucky inside. Steve shrugged and closed the door before turning to follow them.

Bucky updated Steve on the cleanup after the Infinity Cult attacks as they dug into their food, while Alice pretended not to listen. It sounded to her like this Avengers group was a well-oiled machine. Like the 107th Tactical Team had been, but on a much larger scale (and it sounded like at least _some _of the Avengers were sensible).

"How do we feel about the breakfast burrito?" Bucky asked through a mouthful of his own food, eyebrows raised at Alice.

Alice swallowed her mouthful. "It's good! Steve was telling me about the spread of multicultural restaurants in the city these days, so I'm excited to try all that out. It'll be nice to be off rations."

"Rations," Steve echoed, nodding. "I remember what they were like in New York. Lucky if you got salt, let alone any sort of spice."

"You two're really showing your age, here," Bucky laughed through another mouthful. "Hey, Alice, that reminds me - guess where the Dodgers are."

"... Brooklyn?"

"No," he scowled. "Fuckin' _Los Angeles_."

Her brow furrowed. "Really?" She thought about it as she finished her burrito, but then a thought occurred to her. She drew herself up in her chair, eyes flashing, as if about to land a devastating blow. "Did the Yankees move?"

Bucky and Steve's faces fell.

"Don't do this," Bucky muttered.

Alice's eyebrow arched. "_Did they move_?"

"No," Steve said through gritted teeth.

Alice cocked her eyebrow at them. "So it seems I picked the better team after all."

"That's it," Bucky said, turning to Steve. "Send her back."

Alice fell apart laughing in her seat, and after another moment of consternation Steve and Bucky joined her.

As Bucky and Steve polished off the last of their (multiple) burritos, Bucky scrunched up the trash into a compact ball in his metal hand and propped his feet up on another chair (Steve watched with a furrowed brow, but didn't say anything).

"So, what's the plan?" he asked. "You two are good at plans, I figured you'd have cooked something up."

Alice and Steve shared a glance.

"We… didn't really make any plans," Alice said.

Steve scratched his beard. "Yeah. I mean I only really thought as far ahead as getting you off the streets."

Alice scowled. "You make it seem like I was homeless."

Bucky made a face. "_Well_, you kinda… were."

"I had a house! It wasn't mine, but I had a place to sleep."

"So I guess you could call it squatting," Steve suggested.

Bucky waved a hand. "_Anyway_. As far as a plan, Alice, you're not going to be alone in adjusting to the future. They've already set up a bunch of resources for the rest of Bragi's, er, musicians. Language courses, which you won't need, acclimatization sessions, technology classes, doctors, therapists, clothes, funds, housing."

"That all sounds great," Alice smiled. "Are the others… okay?" She'd only had a glimpse of them in Times Square, but she'd heard a bit about who they were and where they were from - if anything, she had it easy.

"It's only been a few days, but yeah - we think they'll be okay."

Steve propped his elbow on the table. "Well we'll need to sort you out with all your documents and everything," he said, eyeing Alice. "You need a lot more in the way of ID these days. S.H.I.E.L.D. helped me out with mine, but I'm sure we can figure something out - Nat will help us, same as Stark Industries."

"Then we'll need to get you a bank account," Bucky added. "I wonder what happened to all your money?"

Alice's eyes widened. She hadn't thought of that. She'd kept most of her money in a bank in Austria. Eighty years ago. (She also had some gold buried in a few European parks as a safety measure, but she'd bring that up later).

"Bucky and I got our pay reinstituted to us, but that was through the Army mostly," Steve said. "Not that either of us were rolling in it to begin with."

"Ain't that the truth," Bucky said wryly.

"Plus," Steve continued, "you'll probably want to get a job or something eventually, though no rush-"

"And we'll have to do some PR," Bucky sighed. "I don't know if you noticed, Al, but the whole world is kind of super curious about you."

"We should focus on the small stuff first," Steve cut in. "Like clothes. That aren't stolen from Goodwill."

"Though it might be worth getting you pardoned for some stuff before you head outside," Bucky said thoughtfully. "Should be easier for you than me."

"She's got a presidential pardon from FDR which still holds up," Steve said.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that."

"Plus being married to Captain America doesn't hurt," Alice smiled, echoing a very old conversation.

Steve's concerned face softened, and Bucky grinned.

"Well," Bucky said, "if you want to be married to Captain America you've gotta tie the knot with Sam, then, so I'll call him and let him know-" he reached for his phone, but then Steve knocked his hand away.

"I'm retired, technically," Steve explained to Alice. "Sam's Captain America now, the shield is his."

"Oh," Alice murmured. "Not Bucky?"

"Something something war criminal, something something-" seeing Steve's aggrieved look, Bucky rolled his eyes. "Sam's a better fit, Al, trust me. You'll understand when you meet him."

Alice opened her mouth, curious about Sam, but Bucky and Steve went back to discussing all the potential problems Alice would have making a life for herself in the modern world. Alice let them talk it out for a few moments longer before setting her hands on the table - not loudly, but significantly enough for them to both look over at her.

"Hey," Alice said. "Let's just… take it day by day. Eat, sleep, listen to the - do people still listen to the radio?"

"They do," Steve said. "Most people watch TV now though."

"Let's do that, then," she replied with a smile. "I want to do all of it. Normal life. Everything else will follow."

Steve smiled. "I don't think you and I can ever pretend to be normal."

"No," Alice agreed. "Let's do it anyway."

They chatted a little while longer in the warm sunshine filtering into Steve's apartment. The conversation mostly consisted of Steve and Bucky looking up photos and videos on their phones to show Alice - she loved the phones and the internet, and pretty soon demanded that she get one as soon as possible.

"This is first priority!" she told them as she flicked through google images of Steve when he'd been smaller. "Before getting me a social security number!" (She had left the US just months before the government began issuing social security numbers in 1936).

Bucky rolled his eyes at her and Steve emerged from the kitchen a moment later.

"Just realized I don't have any coffee left," he said sheepishly. He'd promised to make them all a cup. "Or food. Turns out I forgot to go grocery shopping the last few days. For some reason." He cast Alice a meaningful glance, and she just smiled placidly.

"I'll go," Bucky offered, already standing, but Steve waved him off.

"No, you stay. I should probably leave the apartment at some point," he said guiltily. He turned to Alice. "I promise we'll head out for a walk or a drive soon, but I should probably see what the PR situation is first." He hesitated. "I'm not _telling_ you to stay. Just recommending it."

Alice smiled. It had been almost seven years since her uncle had locked her up in his house (well, almost ninety years technically) and Steve still had the presence of mind not to infringe upon her freedom. "I'm perfectly happy here for now. You go," she smiled. "And you're… going to go in disguise, then?" She added, watching Steve pull on a baseball cap and sunglasses.

Steve looked up. "Yeah."

"_That's_ your disguise." She raised her eyebrows.

"What? The beard really helps."

Alice looked over to Bucky, who'd just dropped onto the couch, and he rolled his eyes at her.

"We can't all disguise ourselves as skinny Italian villagers," Steve said under his breath, but then shot Alice a smile as he walked out the door.

For a few long moments, silence reigned in the apartment. Alice stood and went to the window to watch Steve walk down the street. When he'd walked out of sight she closed her eyes, letting the sunlight warm her skin. It had been some time since she'd been able to simply enjoy the sunshine.

Sighing, she eventually turned away from the window and went to join Bucky on the couch. He'd kicked his feet up on the coffee table and was staring down at his metal hand, turning it to watch how the light played over the black and gold plates. Alice sat a few feet away from him on the dark leather couch, her hands in her lap and her breathing steady. She wore a pair of Steve's sweatpants and a loose cotton shirt. She'd been surprised at how well his clothes fit her - he must've been buying his shirts a few sizes too small.

Bucky and Alice sat in silence for a while like they used to in the war, when he'd been quiet with things he couldn't say.

She waited.

Sounds of the city drifted through the silence: humming engines and squeaking brakes, the occasional shout or honked horn, birds chirping. Once or twice, the rattle of the train rose above the other noises. Alice hadn't seen or heard the Brooklyn streetcar since she'd arrived back. She supposed it was no longer around.

She blatantly watched Bucky, even as he seemed to struggle meeting her eyes. All the charm and bravado of earlier had vanished. He certainly looked very different these days: there was the black and gold metal arm, and his hair was different - he'd shown her old photos of when he'd worn it long, but he'd since clipped it pretty short. He fit well in the modern world, she thought: his navy blue uniform from yesterday had been impressive, and today he wore dark jeans and green shirt, his canvas jacket tossed over the side of the couch. Secrets and pain still hid in his eyes, and he was getting more and more uncomfortable in the silence, but he looked like he _belonged._

Finally, Bucky spoke. "I don't want you to be… I don't want you to be sorry for me," he blurted out.

Alice's eyebrows lifted.

Bucky glanced at her, and his brow hardened. "I know… all the stuff that's happened to me, that I've done, it sounds awful. It has _been _awful. But I don't want you treating me like a… like a…" he struggled for the words, but Alice remained silent, listening.

Bucky seemed to deflate. "I don't want pity, Alice. I'm okay, I really am. I've worked really hard to get to a good place, and I'm not always good, but I have more good days than bad days now. Which… I never thought I'd have. And you're one of my best friends, and I just got you back, and I don't want it to be…" his eyes darted as he searched for the word, his whole body tense.

"Sad," Alice finally finished for him.

Bucky let out a breath, tension uncoiling, and met her eyes. Alice held the silence for a moment longer before she reached across the couch and took his metal hand in hers. Bucky looked down at it.

"I'm not sad for you, Bucky," Alice told him. "I won't lie and say it didn't break my heart to hear what you've been though" - his gaze flickered, but he didn't pull away - "but I am completely, totally, _overjoyed_." Bucky's eyes widened as he met her gaze.

"And it's totally selfish too," she smiled. "When I first got back I saw the date and I thought I'd lost everyone I loved. But I have Steve, and I have _you _\- alive, with more good days than bad." Her voice wobbled traitorously. "My friend."

Bucky breathed for a few moments, absorbing that, before he pushed off his seat and launched across the couch to hug her. He was gentle as he wrapped his arms around her but Alice was not, crushing him to her and laughing into the embrace.

"You are happy, aren't you?" she clarified, her voice muffled against his shoulder. "For the most part?"

"I am," he said. "But then _you _showed up."

Alice snorted at the tease and pushed him away. "I see no one in the future has managed to teach you manners either."

He smiled at her, settling back on the couch, before his eyes went distant and sad. "Do you remember… you remember that mission in Italy, when we first realized you were working for the SSR?"

"I probably remember it better than you," she teased gently.

He smiled, looking down. "I still remember what you said to me, when we were alone up on that outcrop on the mountain. You knew I was holding stuff back, bottling up what had happened to me. You told me to talk about it when I was ready, but you said _I might not be here when you're ready_."

Alice nodded slowly, a heavy sadness pressing on her at the tone in his voice.

Bucky glanced up. "I'm ready now, Al." He cocked his head, and smiled. "And you're here. I want to thank you for that."

Alice's eyes gleamed - she'd never cried so often in such a short period before - and she reached out to pull him into another hug. "Oh, Bucky," she said wetly, laughing at herself. "Tell me everything."

* * *

Steve returned to find his wife and his best friend sitting together on the couch clutching cushions, each of them teary-eyed.

Bucky had told Alice everything: Zola, HYDRA, losing his sense of self and feeling his mind being twisted to another's purpose, almost killing Steve, going on the run, the guilt and shame of all that he had become. He'd told it all before to Steve as well, and Princess Shuri, and his therapists, but there was something new and steadying in telling it to Alice, who listened with calmness and startling empathy, one of the two people who knew him best in the world. Alice saw all of what he had been and what he had become, and when Steve came in and put an end to their impromptu therapy session, she wrapped her arms around Bucky and said:

"I am so, so proud of you, Bucky."

And it felt like a piece of home.

Steve held up his shopping bags with a sheepish smile. "I guess it's a good thing I got icecream too."

Bucky wiped his eyes and got to his feet. "You better have bought something more exciting than vanilla, punk, this is Alice's first try of future ice cream."

Steve rolled his eyes at Bucky and behind them, still hugging a cushion to herself on the couch, Alice couldn't help but smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: the Avengers meet Alice!
> 
> Also, you guys - I have officially finished writing The Siren. As you may have noticed I've put a final chapter count up, so there are two more chapters left. I'm going to update midweek, so the last Siren chapter will come next weekend. It's been a long, awesome journey and I'm looking forward to sharing the end with you x


	61. Chapter Fifty Two

Steve didn't want to overwhelm Alice. But they'd been holed up in his apartment for a while and Alice had reassured Steve that he didn't need to worry, so on the third day they set off for Natasha's new Avengers HQ together, where the whole team had gathered.

Thor and his search team had returned from space, minus the Guardians and Loki (Alice had overheard Steve's phone call with Thor yesterday: "Alas, Loki absconded somewhere in Nornheim," Thor had sighed. "At least he didn't bother to fake his death this time." Steve had raised his eyebrows, but all he said was: "He'll show up again soon, I'm sure").

Alice tried not to stare when they arrived at the headquarters in Midtown, but she couldn't help it: the building was all glass and sleek metal, more like a spaceship than an office building. Not that she knew much about spaceships either.

"It's a bit different than the old SSR offices," she commented as they crossed the lobby toward the elevator.

"Sure is," Steve grinned as he hit the elevator button. "But the woman running this place is just as deadly."

The elevator ride made Alice's nerves fizz and clench in her stomach. She didn't realize how quiet she'd gotten until Steve nudged her with his hip.

"Hey," he murmured. "They already love you, you don't need to be worried. Besides, Bucky got here early so hopefully he'll make them behave."

Alice nudged him back and gave him a tight smile to show her gratitude. But she couldn't quite bring herself to speak.

Alice had been expecting another sleek, corporate space like the downstairs lobby, but half a minute later the elevator doors opened to reveal a warm, cozy sort of room with leather couches, wide windows looking out over Manhattan, and orange lamps. And it looked like they'd walked into a party already underway.

A stack of pizza boxes steamed on the main coffee table, surrounded by a crowd of chatting, laughing people. Alice's eyes were first drawn to a large green-skinned man in a purple sweater and glasses. _Must be Bruce Banner._ She then spotted Bucky standing behind a far counter, pouring drinks for a pair of women - one with blonde hair and a beat-up Air Force jacket, the other with dark skin and white tattoos on her face. The rest of the people in the room looked mostly normal, but Alice knew some of them must not be human: men and women sharing jokes and clinking drinks together, a boy and a girl who looked to be in their teens, as well as a smaller girl sitting on the lap of a ginger-haired woman in a pantsuit. Alice could instantly see this was no normal gathering however: each person seemed larger than life, character and experience written in their every movement.

Behind the ginger-haired woman and child, a man with a strangely shaped beard looked up and spotted Steve and Alice stepping out of the elevator, and his face lit up.

"Look who it is!" he called.

After that Alice was caught up in a whirl of exclamations, handshakes, bright grins and a flurry of names that would have been overwhelming to anyone else, but which she memorized instantly. Still, the sheer scope of skills and titles these people had felt intimidating: doctors and geniuses and aliens. Steve stayed by her side as the Avengers introduced themselves one at a time. He'd been right: they were eager to meet her, beaming at each quiet word she spoke. Sam, who was _much _nicer than Bucky had made him out to be, shook Alice's hand and leaned in to whisper "you're doing great," with a warm smile which instantly lifted the weight on her shoulders.

The child turned out to be Tony Stark's daughter, one of the teenagers was an Avenger called _Spider-Man _who stammered his greeting to her and then shrank away, and the other was the daughter of another Avenger called _Ant-Man_.

After the rush of introductions several Avengers ushered Alice Alice onto one of the couches beside an exasperated-looking Steve, and the pizza boxes were handed around. Alice got a brief reprieve in the rush, and used it to eye the people around her: they were an eclectic bunch, but she saw how smoothly they fit together. They moved and spoke and laughed with the ease of years. A team.

"So how're you settling in?" asked a young woman with auburn hair - _Wanda_ \- as Alice passed on the meatlovers pizza.

About three other conversations had already cropped up in the room, but Alice felt plenty of people waiting for her answer. She smiled. "Much easier now I'm not on the run."

"You seemed to handle yourself alright," said a man who Tony Stark had introduced as 'Rhodey'. "You'd have probably bought yourself a car and figured out computer engineering by next week."

"I still might," Alice responded, and felt a small glow of pride when that got a round of laughter. She hadn't been so nervous to meet a group of people in a long time; these were Steve's friends, and she wanted them to like her. She cleared her throat. "I actually, wanted to - er…" she suddenly felt the full weight of the attention of _all the Avengers _on her: all the gods and soldiers and spies and scientists she'd just been introduced to. She swallowed and continued on. "I wanted to thank you all."

The room grew quiet aside from the sounds of drinking and eating.

Alice met the eyes of each person in the room. "Thanks for lots of things, but mostly - thank you for saving me and the other musicians. And for looking for me. If I'd known who was chasing me, I would have stopped running." There were a few more chuckles. "And thanks for looking after Steve." She turned to find him watching her with warm eyes, pizza forgotten in his left hand. She took his free hand and squeezed it. "I know he doesn't always make it easy."

Steve's smile turned into a scowl, and Bucky snorted as he leaned over the back of the couch to hand Alice her drink: a Paris Sidecar. Alice beamed at him.

"Well, you are very welcome," said Thor with a genuine smile. "It's our pleasure." A shadow crossed his face. "I am only sorry it took me so long to realize what Bragi was up to."

Silence fell for a moment in the sudden darkness of that statement, until Alice gave Thor a tired smile. "It got me here," she told him. "And as much as we might wish things had been done differently... this is the way it is. And the other musicians and I are free, and safe, and being cared for. There's no way we can repay a debt like that."

"It's no debt at all," Thor said solemnly, then ducked his head and leaned away to slide a pizza box toward himself. Alice let out a breath through her nose.

"So come on," said someone on the other couch, and Alice glanced over to see Sam, the new Captain America. He leaned back with a plate stacked with pizza propped on his knee, and an easy smile on his face. "You've gotta tell us what Steve was like, back when he was a kid. Steve doesn't talk about it much and Barnes's brain is as good as pea soup."

Bucky bumped his hip into Sam's couch as he walked by with more drinks, almost toppling Sam's plate of pizza off his knee before Sam lurched to save it.

"Steve was… smaller," Alice said with a smile. "But just as hard headed." Steve just shrugged, accepting the assessment as he ate. His friends laughed.

"What was your wedding like?" asked Pepper Potts, who was holding her daughter's plate of pizza while Morgan was busy sliding under the couch.

Alice and Steve shared a glance at that one. "Um, sudden," Alice admitted, her cheeks going a bit pink when that got a laugh. "Nothing that I had imagined, but everything I needed."

Steve shifted closer to her on the couch until their legs were pressed side by side.

"Was Barnes really as much of a ladykiller as they say he was?" Clint asked, sharing his plate of pizza with the redhead named Natasha. Natasha's lips curved into a smile, but she kept quiet as she watched Alice.

"Yes," Alice laughed. She looked over to Bucky, who had propped himself against the wall and seemed to be trying to avoid the spotlight. "But you were always good to them, Bucky." He looked up, mouth quirking. "You certainly broke a few hearts, but I don't think any of them would say they hated you."

Bucky preened.

"_I_ hate you," Sam muttered.

The conversation flowed over the food and drinks, mostly centred on Alice but also shifting to the others; it wasn't often they all caught up like this, and they seemed excited to be in each other's presence.

Alice told them a little about her work in the war, sanitising it since there were children present. The war still felt so recent to her, but somehow the knowledge that the war had been won eighty years ago helped her to distance herself. The Avengers listened with quiet respect, as if they hadn't all saved the world themselves half a dozen times over.

Alice learned about the Avengers, too - their skills and powers, and what they had decided to do with their lives now their greatest battle had been won. She smiled as they laughed together about 'old times'. She liked the way Steve smiled when he joked with them, and the fond way the others talked about their memories of him.

The Avengers were a remarkable group: the Hulk, with his intellect and humility, Vision with his shifting, kind face, Wanda with her scarlet flashing eyes, Tony Stark's quick-witted charm and his arm in a sleek metal netted sleeve that softly whirred when he moved. Alice was fascinated by them all.

Steve had _such_ a history here, such trust and love.

They were currently discussing Steve's retirement, and how Sam had taken up the mantle. Sam had half the room in stitches describing the mishaps he'd had in getting used to the shield.

"So, what's with the uniform?" Alice asked. "Because I know you're Captain America now, but Steve was definitely wearing a Captain America uniform when I saw him-"

And the Avengers all started clamoring to talk, half of them reaching for their phones to show her an apparently embarrassing history of uniforms that she had never seen. Steve took it all in good stride, just rolling his eyes and laughing at them. His ears did go a bit red at the 'first uniform' as they called it, which Scott Lang had brought up on his phone: a shockingly colorful, tight uniform more like his USO costume than what he'd worn while fighting the war.

"Shocking design by S.H.I.E.L.D.," Tony tutted. "This is the one I made him after he blew up S.H.I.E.L.D." He handed his phone to Morgan. "Bring that over for me, sweetheart."

"She's not a courier service," Pepper sighed, but Morgan had already grabbed her dad's glass phone and run it over to Alice.

"Thank you," Alice smiled as she took the phone from the shy little girl. The image on the phone was of a much nicer uniform, more muted in color and truer to his wartime uniform, if a little sleeker. "I like that one."

"Of course he then beat the shit out of me while wearing it and then _defaced it_," Tony said as he raised his eyebrows at Steve, but Alice could hear from the tone of his voice that whatever hurt there had once been in the story was long forgiven. Steve, for his part, had the grace to look a little ashamed.

Morgan brought the phone back to her dad. "Shit!" she parroted.

Pepper turned to glare at Tony.

"For what it's worth," piped up Clint, who had stood up to select a beer from the kitchen with Stephen Strange, "we have to agree that the best one was his second S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform. Show her, Steve."

Steve sighed, then found a photo on his phone of himself in a dark navy suit with no red in it, just sleek silver stripes and a single star on the chest.

Alice's eyebrows lifted. "Oh I do like that one."

Steve glanced at her. "You… do?"

"Forget about it, you're retired," Tony teased.

The other Avengers began putting in their votes for their favorite of Steve's uniforms (Wanda and Bruce put up a vehement defense for his defaced 'Nomad' uniform), and Alice excused herself to go to the bathroom.

"I'll show you where it is," came a cool voice over her shoulder, and she looked back to see Natasha Romanoff. The Black Widow. Alice had heard a lot about her from Steve and Bucky, but the woman had hung back so far. But Alice hadn't missed how Natasha's cool eyes followed her about the room, assessing.

"You sure, Nat?" Steve asked, something akin to worry in his eyes.

"It's fine," Natasha smiled. She waited for Alice to stand, then tipped her head. "This way."

Steve watched them leave.

Natasha and Alice strode through the common room and out to the hallway outside, walking three feet apart and in perfect step.

"There's a lot of people to get to know, all of a sudden," Natasha said evenly. "You must be tired."

Alice eyed her for several long moments. Natasha's calm facade did not even waver.

Finally, she spoke. "Steve told me about Sharon," she said. "But he didn't tell me about you." Alice trusted Steve to tell her everything she needed to know, but she didn't quite understand this woman's razor focus on her.

Natasha smiled. Neither of them broke their pace. "We did kiss once, but that was to maintain cover on a mission." She leaned in a little and whispered: "I didn't know he was married, at the time."

Alice arched an eyebrow. "You would've done it anyway."

"True." Natasha turned a corner and Alice followed without breaking her stride. "We were on the run from some pretty bad people."

"Well." Alice flicked her eyes over Natasha. She'd been suspicious of her reticence and careful distance earlier, mistaking it for jealousy, but now she saw it was _care_. A strange kind of care, sharp edged, but Alice knew all about that. Natasha was looking out for Steve. Alice's face softened. "Thank you for keeping him safe."

"Oh, he's pretty good at that on his own," Natasha laughed as they approached the bathroom doors. Then she shrugged. "Though he sometimes does need help." She came to a halt outside the bathroom and held out a hand. "Natasha."

"That your real name?" Alice asked with an arched brow.

"Most of the time."

Alice finally reached out to shake her hand. "Well, I'm Alice. Most of the time."

"I know," Natasha smirked.

Alice sighed. "I'm not much of a fan of this everyone-knowing-all-about-me business."

Natasha shrugged. "You'll just have to make some new secrets."

Alice pushed open the bathroom door, then looked back at the smiling redhead. "I think you and I are going to get along, Natasha."

Natasha just smirked again. "I know."

* * *

When Natasha returned to the room with a smile on her face, Steve's stomach lurched.

"Is everything... okay?" he murmured when she approached.

She just smiled wider at his concern, then sat down beside him. "I like her," she said.

He let out a breath. "You do?" He hadn't been _worried_, but he knew that Alice, much like himself, did not always win everyone over in a first meeting. And he wanted his friends to love her.

Natasha patted Steve's knee. "You've told me plenty about Alice in the past and I thought it was partly idealism. Rose colored glasses." Her eyes glinted. "But I should have known better. She's wonderful, Steve. And I can see how you two fit together. It makes sense."

Steve smiled. Natasha normally reserved sentimentality for very small doses, so this was a nice surprise. "Thank you, Nat."

Natasha smiled back for another moment before shooting him a mock-serious look. "Now don't go running off to a far-off farm in the middle of nowhere like Clint did."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Steve assured her. "I actually thought about that when we first visited Clint's farm. Thought it seemed nice. But then I realized that Alice would be bored to tears."

Natasha laughed under her breath as she reached for her drink. "You know what, I think you're right."

* * *

Alice returned to the common room to find that a few different conversations had broken out. Steve was chatting with Natasha and Hope Van Dyne, and he looked up as she entered, but she smiled and waved him off. She'd just heard Thor say _Bragi_, in a conversation with Bruce, Wanda, Strange, the quirky spider-boy, and Carol Danvers.

"... Dronag was most difficult to resituate," Thor was telling them, "since his whole planet was lost in the Shi'ar civil war, but he really liked Xandar, so we agreed to drop him off there."

"What happened to the musicians on Earth?" Alice asked as she slipped into the conversation, suddenly feeling very short beside Thor.

He gave her a small smile. "Most are still at the recovery centre in Wakanda, but are preparing to return to their home countries. There have already been a few requests by musicians wishing to remain in Wakanda, however."

"I'm pretty sure one of the Norse _skalds_ is in love with that 70s singer, the one who disappeared from her plane," Wanda said.

"What a world," Bruce mused.

"What's it like, being a _skald_?" Peter asked Alice, his eyes wide and his voice eager.

Alice thought about it. Bragi had been a secondary thought for her in all this. She supposed she was angry at the god for disrupting so many lives, her own included, but she knew she was lucky to have landed here, with Steve. She hummed. "I suppose it feels strange," she answered the boy. "To have been watched my whole life by… an alien." She lifted one shoulder. "But I don't remember my time in Bragi's world aside from a vague kind of remembered sensation. I'm just glad that you lot managed to get us out. I wouldn't fancy singing for eternity."

"Nor me," Peter said quickly. "Though I'm a terrible singer."

The adults laughed.

Carol tipped her chin up. "You're welcome to visit the recovery centre if you like," she told Alice. "Hell, you can stay there. I know you've got people here, but just… keep it in mind."

"Thank you," Alice smiled. "Are the others… adjusting? I've only missed eighty years, but I know there's others from much further back."

Carol cocked her head. "They've got a lot to learn, a common language being first and foremost, but they're getting there."

"If anything this has taught us that people from hundreds of years ago aren't any less intelligent than us," Strange chimed in. "They just have different knowledge. The progress of just a few days is proving very promising; this group has a particular eagerness to learn. I suppose they're all dreamers and creatives, after all, by nature. They do need protection from modern diseases though, which I've been working on with the Wakandan scientists."

"Speaking of which, you should probably get your shots," Bruce added to Alice. "We didn't have to worry about that with Steve and Bucky because of the serum, but you deserve the best healthcare the twenty first century has to offer."

"Good idea, thank you," Alice acknowledged. "It was good to hear there's a vaccine for polio these days, I remember being terrified that Steve would get it when he was small." She let out a breath. "So the others are okay. That's… that's good. I'd like to meet them, I think."

"Really?" Bruce asked.

She nodded, but didn't say more. _One day, I'd like to perform with them_, she thought. She wasn't sure why; a rebellion against the cosmos, perhaps, a way of taking control back over her own voice, and of all their stories. The thought did terrify her, though. She was curious to know if there was something familiar in each of them that brought them to that golden tree. Strange had called them _dreamers_. Alice was afraid at the thought of it, and furious at the fallen god, but she knew there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing except, perhaps, to live the fullest life she could.

Alice slid up next to Steve as he was in the middle of a raucous conversation on the couches with most of the rest of the Avengers - they seemed to be in the middle of bringing up each other's most embarrassing moments. Alice enjoyed the stories and the easy laughter.

"Remember how you threatened to beat me up on the very first day you met me?" Tony shot at Steve, eyebrows raised.

"To be fair, you were being really annoying," Steve retorted.

"Granted. But you wouldn't have been able to take me."

"Most fights I've seen him start he's lost," Alice agreed.

"Thanks," Steve said.

Bucky waved a hand. "Ah, he's gotten better at finishing fights these days."

"Ooh," said Nat, "if we're going off of most embarrassing moments, what about the time Spider-Man here kicked both Bucky's _and _Sam's asses."

Peter went pink at the compliment as both Bucky and Sam started vehemently defending themselves.

"Technically he _lost _that fight-"

That started the others off talking about some 'battle at the airport'. Alice listened in confusion. Steve had told her that the Avengers had broken apart at one point. But she hadn't realised they had actually all _fought each other _\- they were describing the fight with good humor, even Rhodey, who had apparently been severely injured.

"What drove you all apart?" Alice asked softly, only in the hearing of Steve and a few others.

Steve and Tony shared a glance, measured by years.

Alice frowned. "I know… Steve, you told me about… Bucky, but you also mentioned… politics?"

"You called it politics?" Tony asked, his eyebrow quirked. A few other Avengers glanced over. "Well, I suppose it was." He shrugged and sipped his drink.

Steve sighed and faced Alice. "It's complicated, but basically there was this thing called the Accords: it was an agreement by the United Nations, they wanted to regulate the Avengers and put enhanced people on a register-"

"They wanted to _what_."

The other conversations in the room died at the sudden shift in Alice's voice. Everyone looked over. She sat with her hands clenched into fists in her lap and cold fury burning in her eyes, as well as something like panic.

It took Steve a moment. "Alice," he said softly, reaching for her. "Alice, it's not the same."

And then everyone realized. Alice, who had lived through the war in Austria and Germany, who had split her palms open on the shattered glass of _Kristallnacht_ and seen her friends wearing yellow stars. Who lost her friends to lists and registers and hidden prisons.

Tony leaned over with his elbows on his knees, his head bowed.

Steve reached for Alice's hand but she just clenched her fists tighter.

"No one learned, did they."

Steve's eyes pinched with pain. "Yes. We did." He gestured around. "And it wasn't as simple as I said," he said in an effort to defend his friends. "People were getting hurt-"

"It's never _simple_," she said, standing up abruptly. Normally she'd push down her feelings, smile, let it all wash over her calm facade, but she was done with that. "But it is _wrong_."

The enormity of all she felt overwhelmed her. She turned on her heel and strode out of the room, leaving an icy silence in her wake.

Steve clambered to his feet, but Bucky set his hand on his shoulder. "Give her a minute, pal," he said softly.

* * *

Alice stood before a floor-to ceiling window with her arms wrapped around herself, blindly looking down at the city. A few angry tears had spilled down her cheeks as she stormed away from the common room, but now her face held no expression. Her mind, however, was full.

Steve had warned her that this modern world wasn't perfect. He'd told her all the good things, of course: her mom and Matthias would have had almost no problems getting married nowadays, for one, as a woman she now had the exact same rights and opportunities as any man, Otto would have been able to marry his partner, and the world was, in general, a safer and more open place to live. But Steve had not left out the bad parts. Except, apparently, for this. She supposed he mustn't have realized how it would affect her.

Alice let out a shaky breath. _Perhaps I wasn't being entirely fair_. Everything he'd said had been past tense, so she assumed this wasn't a problem any more. But, she had to remind herself, she was fresh out of the depths and tragedy of the war. She couldn't expect to deal with such things with clarity and calm. She reached up to rub her chin. _I think I'd better take Steve up on that suggestion of therapy._

She heard footsteps, and looked over her shoulder just as none other than Tony Stark rounded the corner. He had his hands in his pockets, and his eyes were slightly wary as he took in the sight of her.

Alice let out a breath and turned to face him, arms still folded.

Tony strode toward her slowly, watching her expression. "Hi," he said. "We haven't really properly had a conversation yet. I think you knew my father-"

"I didn't like him," Alice said bluntly.

Tony's mouth quirked. "Steve usually tries to protect my feelings when he talks about my old man."

Alice turned cool green eyes on him. "Do you want me to?"

Tony shrugged. "Nah. But I didn't come to talk about him, anyway. I met him when he was younger once, when we - never mind." He waved a hand, then took a long breath. "I want you to know, I realize now that I was wrong. About some stuff. In the past." He held up a hand. "Now so was Steve, we both made mistakes. But you're right. Putting innocent people on lists because we're afraid of them isn't the right call."

Alice felt the tight ball of ice inside her loosen a little, and she stopped crossing her arms so tightly.

Tony continued. "After the whole mess with Thanos and the Accords Committee fell apart, I was a part of the team that worked on creating something better. The Avengers have accountability now, but there's no more enforced register of enhanced people. We handle threats _when _they crop up, not before. I learned that from Steve."

Alice's arms loosened and fell by her sides, but her face remained impassive.

"I get why you're suspicious," Tony acknowledged, nodding. "Living for what, almost ten years surrounded by Nazis has got to affect the way you make friends."

Alice let out a breath. "You're not a Nazi."

"Well I'm relieved to hear you say so," Tony said with a quirk of his mouth. He held out his hand. "It's a good basis for a friendship, at least."

* * *

Alice and Tony returned to the gathering in the common room together, absorbed in a very beginner-level discussion of computer coding. The others were kind enough not to mention Alice's outburst as they returned (apart from Steve, who apologised profusely for not telling her earlier).

Alice settled back into the easy conversations and jokes flowing in the room. And as she did she realized, for the first time, that this was a place she felt like she could belong.

* * *

Excerpt from CNN News Post '_Avengers: Siren Confirmed Safe and Healthy_':

_After several days of speculation, Natasha Romanov's newly-created unnamed organisation (most often referred to as the 'New Avengers') put out a short press brief today confirming what most of the world had already suspected: Alice Moser, AKA 'the Siren' has been found and is safe with Avengers personnel (most likely her husband, Captain Steve Rogers)._

_The brief reads 'We are happy to announce that Alice Moser is safe, healthy, and adjusting to her new environment. On behalf of Alice and her loved ones, we request privacy and sensitivity from the public and media for the time being.'_

_The brief was met with a general outpouring of well-wishes and congratulations by the public. While many still have questions about the infamous wartime spy and her re-adjustment to the modern world, it appears the world will have to wait for answers._

* * *

Alice had found herself, once more, in a complicated world. There'd been so much tragedy and loss over the years, and there remained a great deal of curiosity, distrust, and interest toward herself. She knew she would have to find a place for herself in this world, like Steve had.

Suddenly, all the doors that had been closed to her before were open now: she could sing whatever she liked, love whoever she wanted to without fear, she could study and travel and speak. She could shout from the rooftops that she fucking hated Nazis and that she was in love with Captain America. The freedom felt dizzying.

And even as she adjusted to the future, there were parts of her past that she couldn't wait to revisit.

* * *

Alice and Steve drove to San Francisco, wearing disguises since 'the Siren' was still front-page news in many places. The drive was nice: they'd never gone for a long drive together, save for the time the 107th Tactical Team had stolen that truck in Italy and Steve had been hiding under a tarpaulin in the truck bed. They swapped driving shifts, listening to every song Steve could think of and stopping at roadside motels where they shared the creaky beds and surfed the many TV channels.

Finally, they arrived at a beautiful townhouse in San Francisco. They were let in by a middle-aged woman with kind eyes who didn't speak; she just smiled, and gestured them through to another room.

The door to the living room opened and Alice saw an old woman sitting there, waiting. The woman was withered and silvery, her hair almost white and her skin wrinkled and marked by age.

But then the woman looked up and Alice saw her friend: the same clever dark eyes, the same twist to her mouth that looked half like a smile, half like a frown.

"Jilí," Alice breathed, and realized that tears had begun spilling down her cheeks. Steve's hand remained steady at her back. "I left you."

"No you didn't, _Heulsuse_," [_crybaby_] Jilí said kindly, and the corners of her mouth tipped up into a smile. She opened her arms and Alice sprang forward, rushing over the carpeted floor and practically falling into Jilí's embrace. "You had no way of knowing."

Alice clung to her friend and wept, half-sprawled across the sofa, her arms around Jilí as Jilí softly stroked her hair. Alice had thought she could face this calmly, but recognizing her friend in this old and withered frame had struck her deep. She cried for all the miles and years put between them.

"You made it," Alice cried. "You made it out."

"So did you." Jilí kissed the top of Alice's head. "I see you brought your fellow from Brooklyn."

Alice laughed wetly and looked up to see Steve hovering awkwardly in the doorway, with the woman who'd let them into the house standing behind him. "I hear you've already met."

"It's always nice to get back in touch with people you once wrote letters to," Jilí said tiredly.

Alice laughed, and Jilí motioned for Steve and the other woman to come in and take a seat.

"Alice," Jilí said, as Alice righted herself and wiped her cheeks. "I'd like to introduce you to my daughter," she gestured to the woman, who looked to be in her sixties, with greying copper hair and Jilí's dark eyes, "Alice."

Alice blinked. "Alice?"

The other woman smiled and held out her hand. "That's me. I never thought I'd meet my namesake, but I'm honored."

"_I'm _honored," Alice said, eagerly shaking her hand. "I can't believe..." she glanced between Jilí and her daughter, picking out differences. It felt _bizarre _that this woman was born almost a decade after Alice had vanished, and now was at more than twice her age. "It's wonderful to meet you."

Alice the younger (older?) smiled. "Likewise. Thank you for all that you did."

Alice felt a twist of guilt. "Oh, I didn't-"

"You did," Jilí said firmly. "If it weren't for you, I'd have been dead long before they put these numbers on my arm." She slid up her cardigan sleeve, revealing a tattoo on her forearm.

Alice leaned in, round-eyed, and reached out to trace the long-faded numbers. She could only just make them out. Her stomach turned and she fought not to let her sudden surge of anger show on her face. She'd only seen a few tattoos like these before, in the war: escapees from the camps who had come to her network in search of escape. The sight of them had made her furious before, but seeing this old memento of Jilí's imprisonment made her want to break something.

Jilí's hand landed on Alice's, stilling her slow tracing of the numbers. "They're dead." Alice glanced up, frowning, and Jilí met her eyes. "Everyone who hurt me is gone. They were killed, or imprisoned, but either way _I outlived them_." A glint of something like victory lit up in her eyes, faded as they were. Jilí's fragile hand tightened on Alice's. "And so did you."

Alice felt a sudden smile creep across her face at the vindication in Jilí's eyes. She gripped her friend's hand. Steve and the other Alice watched from their seats, smiling.

Alice and Jilí had seen such violence in the war, had weathered grief and heartbreak and fear, and had together mustered the courage to fight back. Jilí might have lived through almost eighty years since then, but Alice saw that her memories of that time were just as clear for her as they were for Alice.

The war had forged Alice and Jilí into something different.

"Thank you for looking for me," Alice eventually said in reply. "Steve told me - your whole life-"

Jilí smiled crookedly. "And it turns out some bloody alien whisked you off to space," she cut in, rolling her eyes to make Alice laugh. "I have to say, after years of searching and about a hundred different theories, _that _never occurred to me."

"I'm sorry," Alice murmured. "You shouldn't have had to spend so long looking for me-"

"Oh, I don't regret it," Jilí said firmly. "I helped hundreds of other people during my search, and in truth I think I needed something to do after the war." She flapped a hand. "We all need a hobby." Alice smiled at her, and Jilí continued: "I'm just sorry Peggy never got to find out that you'd come back, that you were safe."

Alice's smile wobbled, but stayed on her face. "I would have liked to talk to her again, too," she said softly. "You two were friends?" Jilí nodded, her sharp dark eyes glimmering with sadness.

Alice settled in beside her. "Tell me everything."

Alice and Jilí spoke for hours about everything Alice had missed. Alice didn't need to tell Jilí much about her own experience of the war, since Jilí pretty much knew it all after her research. Alice learned about Jilí's second husband James, and the family they had built together. About Jilí's work in S.H.I.E.L.D., and her friendship with Peggy Carter. Alice could see how Jilí and Peggy would get along; Alice supposed she herself was drawn to a certain kind of uncommon, unyielding woman, and that quality had drawn Jilí and Peggy together.

Steve and Jilí's daughter listened for the most part, occasionally chiming into the conversation, fetching tea and biscuits. As they cleared away the teacups later in the afternoon, Jilí sighed and leaned back in her chair, weariness written across her face.

She turned her gaze, still sharp despite the years, on Alice. "Let me hear you sing, Alice," she murmured. "I never thought I would hear you again."

Alice looked down at her lap. She hadn't sung since she arrived back in the future - not even a hummed tune to herself. She was afraid, she supposed. The last time she had performed had been for an audience of Nazis, and then she'd had her song wrung out of her like a captive bird for decades.

But here sat her dear friend, who had once been her only source of real and present friendship in one of the hardest times of her life, asking to hear her sing.

Alice drew in a deep breath and wiped her eyes.

"_Ein leiser Walzer schwebt durch den Raum_," [_A soft waltz floats through the room_] she sang, softly and a little hesitantly at first. But no golden snare of light flashed in the room, and no sickening twist of guilt surged in her stomach. Her only listener was Jilí, whose eyes softened as she recognized the song.

"_Da gleite ich mit dir wie im Traum_," [_I glide with you as if in a dream_], Alice's voice came more confidently, lilting in the living room as the afternoon sun glowed orange through the windows. "_Durch Sterngewimmel bis in den Himmel, und alles lacht uns freundlich zu_." [_Through a swarm of stars up to the sky, and everything laughs kindly at us._]

Jilí closed her eyes, and as Alice sang on, weaving the melody in the air between them, a tear creeped out from under her lashes.

This was a German love song, normally meant to be sung in a buoyant tone at the top of one's lungs, but Alice couldn't help but turn the tune slightly sad. The last time Alice had sung this song had been at Jilí and Franz's wedding.

Alice reached out to hold her friend's withered, papery hand as she sang.

* * *

When Steve and Alice the younger heard the unmistakable sounds of song emanating from the other room, they shared a glance. Slowly, they moved to the door to look into the living room.

Jilí and Alice sat hand in hand, both of their eyes closed, as Alice sang. The scene made Steve's heart wrench, as did Alice's voice: he'd last heard her sing back in Berlin, but this wasn't a song for Nazis. This song came from the very bottom of her heart, and he heard it in each note and shaky breath she took.

After a moment, he and the other Alice closed the door.

* * *

Alice didn't move in with Steve straight away. They were both worried that it would be too much, too quickly - especially as they'd never lived together before - so Alice rented an apartment in Brooklyn with the money that had been returned to her after it had been seized and redistributed upon her "death". She only accepted the money that rightfully belonged to her, not the offered donations from hundreds of people.

She calculated how much money she had earned by profiteering from the Nazis, then donated that entire amount to campaigns against antisemitism and fascism, and museums honoring the victims of the war. She also, of course, completely gave over the title to her uncle's old mansion to Hugo's granddaughter, who ran the _Steinkauz Haus_ jazz bar and community centre in Vienna.

This left her without a great deal of money, but enough to get by. Her apartment was nice: smaller than Steve's, and the air conditioner only worked about half the time, but it reminded her of her old home above Matthias's tailor shop. Not perfect, but a home. Besides, it gave her independence and space to breathe when she needed it.

(She and Steve usually spent most of their time at each other's places anyway.)

* * *

Shortly after Alice got herself a proper modern phone and an email address, she received an invitation to a 'family reunion' at a community hall in Brooklyn. When she showed the email to Steve, her hand shaking slightly, he checked his own phone to find that he'd been invited too. An hour later, Bucky called them and asked what they thought he should wear to the reunion.

They decided to go together. They found a car park in the busy lot outside, then carried in their contribution to the potluck (a lasagna that Bucky had made and four tubs of icecream that Steve and Alice had bought from their local bodega). They followed the signs in to the community centre, each of them feeling a little out of place, until they walked into the main hall.

It was no ballroom with glittering chandeliers: the hall had a lacquered wooden floor, windows with old yellowed curtains, and fluorescent lighting. And it was already full of people of all ages standing and sitting around the arranged plastic tables and chairs, filling the room with chatter and laughter. The potluck buffet table stretched along the whole back wall.

When Alice, Steve, and Bucky walked in, the room went quiet. Alice felt nerves shiver up and down her spine as she stared around at them all. There had to be at least fifty people here, and all of them were staring at her. Alice's palms ached from gripping the freezing ice cream.

The first to move was an older woman with dark skin. She rose from her seat and walked across the room, her nice shoes clipping on the wooden floor. As she came closer Alice took her in: she looked to be in her early seventies, with lines around her eyes and her hair a dark shade of burnished silver, like a thundercloud. She wore a cardigan over a dark blue dress. She came to a halt a few feet away from Alice, her eyes fixed on Alice's face.

Alice glanced sideways at Steve and he just smiled at her. She glanced back, eyeing the woman, whose eyes began to glitter with tears.

Alice looked at the woman's face, taking in her high cheekbones and the warm brown of her eyes, her half-crooked smile. Alice's hand rose shakily to her mouth.

She took a breath. "_Alice_," she whispered.

"Alice," the older woman replied, both an answer and a greeting. She smiled, her lips trembling slightly, and reached out. Alice handed her icecream to Steve and then reached out to take the woman's hands with shaking, cold fingers. They each gripped tight and beamed at each other, searching each other's faces.

"You're my aunt," the older woman said.

Tears spilled down Alice's face as she stared at her niece with her gleaming eyes and her face lined with joy. Alice shook her head wordlessly, then launched forward and kissed Alice Johnson on her wrinkled forehead. "_Alice_," she breathed again. "I am so… so…" she searched for some way to express all that she felt. "I'm so glad Tom had you," she settled on. "He would be so proud to see the woman you are today, Alice, you… you're beautiful."

And Alice Johnson wept in Alice Moser's arms.

The rest of the room gave them a few moments of privacy for this meeting; a low buzz of conversation struck back up, though all eyes remained on the doorway, and Bucky wandered in to drop off the food.

After a few moments Alice the elder pulled away a little, looking a little embarrassed. "Sorry, sorry."

"Don't apologize," Alice murmured, still holding her hand.

Alice the elder smiled, then swept her arm around the room. "Alice, meet the Johnsons. Well, most of them. There's a few Barneses here as you can see" - Bucky had already begun mingling, shaking hands and exchanging greetings with a smaller group of people who shared a resemblance with him, and as Alice watched an older lady stuffed a sandwich into his hands - "and a few others connected with the old Brooklyn crowd."

Alice smiled shyly around the room at them all. Most of the conversation had stopped again.

Alice Johnson squeezed her hand. "This is my family. More importantly, Alice, this is _your _family."

And Alice was met with broad smiles and teary eyes as she looked around. She saw Tom's eyes looking back at her across the room, and she felt his spirit in the warm grins and open faces. A complicated, throat-clogging feeling rose in her, more powerful than love and grief, and she gripped Alice's hand for support.

"Hello, everyone," she said in a shaky voice.

The smiles only grew. "Hello, Alice," they called back.

And then Steve's hand was at the small of her back and the older Alice held onto her arm for support, and the three of them walked forward to meet Alice's family.

Once more, Alice whirled her way through a party full of people. But this time it wasn't the kind of smooth, smoky party dripping with jewellery and classical music that she was used to, but one with plastic cups, a squeaky floor, old women in knit sweaters and a curated Spotify playlist. But she'd never had more fun.

Alice sat on creaky plastic chairs listening to decades of stories, held fussing babies and learned new names and tried every dish in the potluck and laughed at jokes made with the familiar ease of family. It reminded her of Thanksgivings and Christmases with Matthias's family, who had adopted her and her mom as if they'd always been a part of the fold.

Tom's family had grown with a similar warmth and generosity, and being a part of it made Alice want to cry.

While Steve and Bucky chatted with the Barneses and were roped into dancing with some older ladies, Alice sat with Alice Johnson and her two younger brothers Matthew and Robert. They were earnest, warm men, with the spark of charm that reminded Alice of their grandfather, Matthias. She told them so and they practically melted before her.

The Johnson siblings told Alice about their childhood with their father, who had fought in a war and continued fighting back home for the disenfranchised and oppressed. Alice had heard a lot of this already, but something about the warm, affectionate way they spoke about Tom made Alice's heart swell. They told her about their mother Ruth, who had been there for Tom in the final years of the war and who had loved him every minute of their shared lives. Alice wished she could have met Ruth - her children described her as a warm woman with a spirit like iron nails, who had respected Tom's silence about his sister for over twenty years and welcomed the truth with open arms when he was finally able to share it. The siblings then told Alice about their lives - Alice Johnson's career with S.H.I.E.L.D., Matthew's work in the Air Force which had led to a later job as a commercial airline pilot, and Robert's dedication to continuing the family tailor business.

In return Alice told Tom's children about the young Tom she had known, and what life had been like in the Johnson tailor shop back in the time of the Depression. A small crowd gathered around their conversation, and soon Alice found herself talking about old family traditions and meals to a group of older family members so attentive that Alice was certain they were about to produce notebooks and start taking notes.

Alice also met Bucky's extended family. They seemed to know both Steve and Bucky well already, but they ate up Alice's stories about what they'd been like as kids with glee. The whole event, Bucky was trailed by a small gaggle of children gazing at his arm with starry eyes.

Also in attendance were some of Peggy Carter's family: most notably Sharon Carter, who seemed a little nervous to meet Alice at first, until Alice cornered her and they began chatting about the modern world of intelligence and Sharon's work as both an agent and a spy.

There were also others: a few great-grand-children of Finnigan Neri and Edith Brodeur, Alice's childhood friends from Brooklyn Junior High, and a few of Jilí's great grandchildren who lived on the east coast.

Once all the food had been eaten (Bucky's lasagna was a big hit) and everyone had sagged into clusters of plastic chairs to chat and sip from paper cups of coffee, Alice found Steve standing by the window and slipped her arm around his waist. He smiled down at her.

She squeezed him in a side-hug for a few moments. "Thank you."

"Wasn't me," he said softly. He nodded at the gathered people. "It was them."

"I know. But… you already know them all, don't you?"

He nodded. "Yeah, mostly through email, but… I couldn't _not _reach out to them, once I got to the future."

Alice smiled at that. The buzz of conversation and music washed over her, filling her with a sense of contentment. She reached up to rest her hand on Steve's chest, over his heartbeat. "I'm just… I'm sorry…" she hesitated.

"What?"

"I'm sorry there's no big brood of Rogerses waiting in the future for you," she sighed. "I know it was just you and your mom, but it doesn't… seem fair."

She felt Steve's laugh rumble in his chest and she looked up at him. He was smiling.

"Alice, I've got an _enormous_ family," he said. He stroked a hand down her back. "I've got the Avengers, I'm not getting rid of them any time soon. I've also got everyone in this room, as long as you don't mind sharing." She smiled, and his mouth quirked up. "And I've also got…" he turned, his hand rising to her face, and Alice closed her eyes as he kissed her. "You," he said against her lips, making her smile again.

They pulled apart, arms still looped around each other, and Alice looked out at the hall full of old people, chatting adults, and kids playing in the corner.

"I don't mind sharing," she whispered.


	62. Chapter Fifty Three

"Now," Steve said to Alice a few days later, "there's someone who I _definitely_ have to introduce you to." He cocked his head. "But we should probably go to D.C."

* * *

When Amaya Reyes walked up the sidewalk toward the outdoor seating area of Burton's Cafe, Washington D.C., and saw Steve and Alice sitting side-by-side at a table sipping from cups of coffee, she dropped her bag and burst into tears.

Alice was alarmed at the sight of the young woman on the sidewalk with purple dyed hair suddenly falling apart, but then Steve murmured an explanation in her ear and she nodded. She set down her coffee, slid out of her chair and walked out to the footpath. She leaned down to pick up the woman's fallen satchel bag, then waited.

After a few more seconds, the woman peeled her hands away from her face and noticed Alice standing there with her bag. Her eyes went round.

"Hello," Alice said, a little nervously. "Steve has told me… well. He's told me everything." Amaya's eyes shone. "I want to say thank you. For telling my story."

Amaya burst into tears again.

Alice escorted Amaya over to their table, where they ordered her a cup of coffee and waited for her to calm down.

"I'm so sorry," Amaya said, wiping her eyes. "I can't seem to stop."

"Don't apologize, I felt the same way," Steve reassured her with a smile.

Alice decided some calming small talk was in order, so as they sipped their coffees and Steve crunched biscotti, she told Amaya about her assimilation into the future; it seemed that was what most people were curious about. She also thanked Amaya for her efforts in getting Alice to safety.

Amaya listened with an expression on her face as if she'd been hit over the head.

Steve took over the small talk, describing again to Alice how he and Amaya had formed a professional - and personal - relationship over the years.

Finally, Amaya seemed ready to speak. She opened her mouth, and Steve fell silent. "Sorry for the crying."

"It's really okay," Alice reassured her.

Amaya drew in a deep breath. "I always thought that if I had the chance to speak to you - hypothetically, of course - that I'd have so many questions," she told Alice in a soft voice. She shook her head slowly. "But I… I just want to say thank you."

Alice cocked her head. "What for?"

"For everything!" Amaya exclaimed. "Being the historian of the Siren has kind of become my thing, thanks to Steve, but even before then… I was fascinated by your story. Because you're not a superhero." Her eyes gleamed. "You don't have super serum, or a metal suit, or magic. You… you saw a world of injustice and persecution, and you knew you had to do something about it. Back when I was a teenager unsure of myself and everything… that had power. It still does."

It was Alice's turn to look as if she'd just been hit over the head. She stared at Amaya for a few seconds following her outburst. Then she took in a hiccuping breath, and blinked rapidly to fight off the tears stinging her eyes. "Thank you."

* * *

After their few hours with Amaya in D.C. (it turned out Amaya had a _lot _of questions, once she steadied herself), Steve and Alice didn't go straight home. They drove along the coast, taking in the rocky shores and sprawling cities until they found a hidden-away beach painted with the colors of sunset.

They walked barefoot in the sand, shivering a little in the breeze rolling off the ocean.

Then Steve got down on one knee and offered Alice a ring she had last seen on his mother's finger, and then in a charcoal drawing on a scrap of Steve's old uniform.

"I bullied the Smithsonian into giving this back to me," Steve explained at the wondering look on her face. "I've carried it around ever since. So this is… eighty years too late, and a bit backwards, but" - he cleared his throat dramatically - "Alice Hedwig Moser. Will you… continue to be my wife?"

She beamed down at him. "I will."

* * *

Alice often felt like she had a whole world of new people to meet. She took her time with it, conscious that Steve was worried she would overwhelm herself. But slowly, as the days turned into weeks, she set up meetings with people she had never met before. And some that she had.

It turned out there were whole generations of families alive today because Alice had saved, or helped to save, their ancestors in the war. After being sworn into secrecy by Jilí and Peggy after the war they had all come out of the woodwork in the 70s after her files were declassified, and they all wanted to meet her now that she was back. It was all rather painful and overwhelming, as Alice didn't know what to say to these people. Back in the war she'd just gotten people out, as many as she could, and hoped they were living well somewhere. But now she was faced with just how much _life _there was because of her. And she didn't know how to accept thanks for that.

So she started with a familiar face.

Rupert Hoffman was in his nineties, his hair a thin and wispy cloud crowning his head, wearing wire-frame glasses. His face had a lot of character, with laugh lines around his glinting eyes.

"Did you remember me, when I reached out?" he asked her, leaning on his cane.

"Of course I did," Alice replied as she helped him into a seat at the Austrian restaurant they'd met at in New York. "You were just ten, and such a little ball of energy and curiosity. You asked me when we'd see each other again."

He smiled, a shaky thing. "You said _once we're all safe and sound_."

Alice let out a shaky laugh. She had driven Rupert and his family out of Vienna and up into the mountains on the border of Austria the day after Christmas of 1940. Just months before the Holocaust began in earnest. She remembered the feeling of the snow biting into her knees as she hugged Rupert and his sister goodbye. She remembered hiding their father's Star of David pendant in the staircase of her uncle's mountain chalet.

Alice ran her eyes over Rupert's face. She still saw hints of that little boy in him. "I'm so glad you made it out," she said. "I had no way of knowing, but…" she leaned forward. "Tell me everything."

Rupert was the last living member of his family that had escaped from Europe. He told Alice that they had travelled on foot all the way to neutral Turkey, where they lived until the end of the war. His mother died of a fever in 1944, but he, his father, and his sister survived the war and lived in Turkey (once receiving a visit from Jilí to tell them to keep quiet about Alice) until they moved to the United States in the 1960s. But not before they returned to that cabin in the Austrian mountains.

"Fourth step up, creaky board," Rupert said with a glint in his eye. He reached into his shirt and pulled out an old, well-polished metal Star of David. Alice's heart skipped a beat. "My father wore this every day until he died in 1992. He brought it to your posthumous Righteous Among the Nations award ceremony and spoke about what you did for us. When I die, I will pass this on to my sister's children. This necklace is a reminder for our family that no matter how dark the world may seem, there are always saviours."

Alice lurched forward and pulled Rupert in for a hug.

* * *

One quiet weekday, Steve and Alice took a walk to Brooklyn Bridge Park. They knew they wouldn't have long before they were spotted, so Steve made a beeline for a shady grove of trees. Alice followed him, frowning, until she saw the bronze statue waiting for her there.

She stopped in her tracks.

_THE SIREN  
Alice Moser, who sang so beautifully that they never heard her chipping away at the foundation beneath their feet._

The statue was absolutely laden with flowers, drawings, and cards with well-wishes. A plastic replica of Steve's shield had been propped against the base of the statue.

Alice and Steve stood before the statue for a long time, looking up at it.

"I drew this once," Steve said, his voice heavy with emotion.

Alice glanced over at him. "The statue?"

"Yeah. The statue… with you and me standing in front of it. I'll show you when we get home."

Alice took in a shaky breath, glancing back at the statue. Her own face, etched in bronze and quirked in a half smile, looked back at her. Alice reached out to take Steve's hand.

* * *

The weeks turned into months.

One of the wonderful things about arriving in the twenty first century with endless free time was _learning_. Before, Alice had always been limited by circumstance: her family hadn't had enough money to send her to good schools or even a college in New York, and in Vienna her uncle had only been willing to pay for her music degree if she paid him back by performing for him. And Alice did love music, but she hadn't always been sure that was the only path she'd choose for herself.

So with the endless help of the internet she threw herself into anything that took her fancy: mathematics, science, history, and the wonderful new world of computing. She found that the logic of computer coding made sense to her, like an extension of the codes and ciphers she had learned by hand as a child. She learned the language of computers, discovering new ways to talk to them. Algorithms and analytics delighted her mind.

Steve fostered her interest, smiling as he told her that it reminded him of when they were kids, and she always had some hare-brained research scheme or project. And he connected her with people willing to help her learn.

Tony Stark became one of her biggest sources of education; he sent her programming problems and new algorithms, and readily talked her through concepts when they occasionally met in person for meals or coffee (he and Steve liked to catch up regularly). She supposed she ought to feel a little embarrassed that she was learning at the same level as Tony's five year old daughter Morgan, but the girl was most likely a genius herself, and would no doubt outstrip Alice one day.

Alice began picking up college prospectuses.

* * *

Alice was used to being a public figure, but fame in Nazi Germany in the 1940s looked a lot different to fame in the twenty-first century, especially when one's life was bound up with war and infamy and aliens and being married to an ex-Avenger. She got to know her own legacy, and learned to handle it with responsibility and tact. She chose, for the most part, to do as Steve had done: to let her actions speak for themselves.

That didn't stop the worldwide interest, or the hundreds of job offers that poured in. She was, technically, unemployed, but none of them quite appealed to her. Production companies offered her million-dollar deals for records, newspapers offered her political comment columns, TV shows proposed that she become a morning television host, others wanted her as a product advertiser, an influencer, even a politician.

She did respond to historians where she could, offering more interviews and answers than Steve had in his time, and occasionally she received job offers that… she certainly considered.

"Hey Steve," she said one day as she sat with her new laptop, "I just got an email from Disney."

"Who?"

"Disney. The company."

"Uh. What do they want?"

"They're offering me a job, from the looks of things. As a _princess_."

* * *

Other job opportunities, Alice sought out herself.

While enjoying her time with Steve and learning everything she could, Alice put some serious thought into her future. She knew she would never be a spy again: her face was too recognizable. She wasn't quite ready to step back into singing, either. Her past as a singer was still too painful for her, however much the public wanted her to grace the stages in a long white dress again.

So she thought about what she could offer the world. Steve was fashioning himself as a kind of advocate and activist of sorts, which was a role she felt she could readily fall into beside him. But… Alice felt she had more to offer. She knew her skills and shortcomings well: she was a quick thinker and problem-solver, good with information and systems. And there was one budding organisation that was in sore need of those skills.

Alice didn't tell anyone when she applied for the Avengers Junior Agent Intake Program. Not even Steve. She assumed an alias with F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s help (she and F.R.I.D.A.Y. got along quite well), submitted a slightly sanitised CV and completed the rigorous online testing program. The initial stages were designed to see if one were even eligible to apply, and later stages put junior agents into streams of specialisation: Field Agent, Scientific Staff, Administrative Support, and Analysts.

When Alice got confirmation that her assumed alias had been accepted to the Initial Training Program, she showed up to the Avengers HQ in Midtown for her first day.

Natasha herself walked into the room full of half a dozen nervous recruits and swept an eye over them all. Her gaze lingered on Alice for half a second before she moved on. If she was surprised, she didn't let it show on her face.

"Hello everyone," Natasha said evenly. "Welcome to the Avengers."

Four weeks of intense testing, interviews, and training followed. It reminded Alice of her training under Peggy, though at least this time she had fellow trainees she could commiserate with.

Alice tested highly in mathematics, logic, problem solving, intelligence, analysis, and covert operations. Her physical fitness was a little behind the others, since she'd spent a few years indulging in wine and fineries in Nazi Germany and then the past months enjoying food, rest, and culture with Steve. She tried not to get her hopes up, but it was gratifying to know that even eighty years after her 'prime', her skills and smarts were still worth something.

At the end of the program Natasha handed Alice a letter. It had her real name at the top. And under that:

_ACCEPTED  
Career Stream: Analyst_

"The streams are flexible," Natasha told her with a glint in her eye. "If you want to work towards another stream, we can be open to that. And senior Analysts occasionally go into the field anyway. We can offer you any and all training you're willing to accept. And if you never want to see action again, that's completely fine too."

"Thank you," Alice said, a little breathless, before she looked back up with a sharp expression in her eye. "This isn't because of…"

"You've earned your place here," Natasha cut her off. "I don't care what your name is. And I'm not doing this as a favor. I'm trying to build something here that will _last_." Natasha's expression shifted into something hard, yet hopeful. "And organisations that last are founded with people like you, Alice. I need you."

Alice held out her hand. After a moment, Natasha took it.

"Thank you, Agent Romanoff," Alice breathed.

"That's _Director_ Romanoff to you," Natasha smirked. "Welcome aboard, Agent Moser."

* * *

Steve didn't seem surprised when Alice told him about the job.

"I've gotten pretty good at noticing the signs of you going off to receive secret spy training," he said with a wry smile. "I tried to get Natasha to tell me, but she acted like nothing was up."

"I am sorry for the secrecy," Alice told him again. "I don't want to lie to you anymore, I just-"

"You wanted to know if you could do it," he finished for her with a smile. "I get it."

She launched forward and wrapped her arms around him. "That was my last secret. Next time I'll tell you about my secret spy training."

He pressed his lips against her hair. "Congratulations, Alice. I couldn't think of anyone more suited for the job."

* * *

When she told the Avengers they were genuinely pleased for her, if a little shocked. It seemed a lot of them had forgotten that she'd had more roles in the war other than just singing.

"I've got a brain, too," she protested to Sam, when they caught up for milkshakes in Midtown.

"Oh I know," he reassured her. "And it's terrifying."

* * *

When Alice picked up her new Avengers employee badge, she felt new futures opening up before her. She didn't know where she'd end up, but this new world acknowledged her for _all _her skills. And there was no one telling her that she couldn't reach out and become whatever she wanted.

* * *

After months of purposefully keeping her distance, Alice finally reached out to the other _skalds_ of Bragi. Some lived galaxies away, others on other continents. Alice set up an email chain. It was strange, at first - most now knew enough of their equivalent modern language to communicate via email and google translate, but the experience of exchanging emails with musicians born hundreds of years before her and decades after her was bizarre. They started off with pleasantries, then polite enquiries after their different situations.

Some remained in Wakanda, enjoying the slightly more sheltered life there, with modern amenities and food. The others were stretched around the globe. Two of them, the Norse _skald _and the 70s country musician, had plans to get married next year. The Russian composer who'd been lost at sea complained about the excess of great-great grandchildren fussing over him, but seemed to love the ease of readily-available online music and was learning how to mix sound on a computer. Romans and Wakandans and Mongolians and Persian and Incans, they each had their own small hopes for the future, and things about the new world that both frightened and excited them. And even though they had to rely on online translations for most of their emails, Alice began to feel, like she had with her computer programming, as if they spoke the same language.

Each of them shared memories of strange instances throughout their life (which they now realized were symptoms of Bragi's attention), and discussed the trauma of being snatched out of their time. Some of them had vague recollections of Bragi's tree (usually those who had been there longest), but very little memory remained. Some of them were too afraid to sing, or make music again.

Finally, plans aligned enough for Alice to visit one of the _skalds_ (a Sioux singer and drummer who had been plucked from the 1500s) in his home, along with half a dozen others. A few drinks in, someone got out a violin and began to play. They played with the notes, exploring, and after a minute Alice began to sing. She joined in with a melody she'd invented, followed, one by one, by the others in the room. Alice met the eyes of the 1800s French opera soprano sitting beside her and they both grinned.

They sang a song that had never been heard before, spun from their own imagination. Deep, vibrating voices entwined with higher ones and the cry of the violin and the beating of the Sioux drums. And there were no golden flashes, no sense of being watched.

But it felt entirely like magic.

* * *

One year and one day after Alice dropped to the ground in the middle of Times Square, she found herself sitting in a Manhattan bar with Steve, Bucky, Sam, Natasha, Tony, Pepper, and Morgan.

The bar was what they called a speakeasy these days, which was more of a style than anything to do with Prohibition: low lights, intimate booths with candles glowing on the tabletops, and a bar glittering with dozens of bottles. This bar also happened to be kid friendly. There was a stage at the far end of the room, with an open area around it for people to mingle and dance. The low buzz of conversation and the musky, heady scent of perfume and spilled alcohol reminded Alice of the speakeasy Bucky had snuck her and Steve into once upon a time. Though this place was unmistakably modern: the stage was set up with modern sound and light equipment, and groups of people took photos on their phones.

Alice and the others took up two booths, elbows pressing against each other and the air loud with their laughter. Sam, Tony, and Bucky were in the middle of a loud, obnoxious conversation about whose uniform looked coolest (even though Tony was retired), Pepper and Nat were up at the bar ordering cocktails, and Morgan was looking at pictures of Alice and Steve's dog on Steve's phone.

They had adopted the mutt from a shelter in Brooklyn a couple of months ago, purely because they'd been walking past and made the split-second decision to go in. The shelter had named the long, wriggly young dog Noodle for his propensity to somehow slip through impossibly small spaces, and when they had adopted him Alice and Steve had given him the honorific of 'Colonel', so he outranked Steve.

Most of their friends could not believe that they'd adopted a dog named _Colonel Noodle_, loudest among them Tony, though Alice thought he really had no right to criticize naming traditions when he'd named his first robot Dum-E. Everyone loved Noodle though, and he was an affectionate dog who was perfectly happy to go on break-neck sprints with Steve in the early hours of dawn or curl up with Alice and Steve on the couch to watch movies.

"Who's looking after Noodle?" Morgan asked Steve worriedly.

"Don't worry, he's in good hands," Steve replied to the six year old. "He's with Peter, at Peter's aunt's house."

Alice and Steve, after noticing that Spider-Man had been extending his reach to Brooklyn, had offered each of their houses as a place for him to crash or seek help whenever he needed it. Peter had stopped by a few times, once for some quick first-aid and other times just simply because he needed someone to talk to, and that had led to him and Colonel Noodle forming a fast bond.

Nat and Pepper walked back from the bar, weaving through the increasingly-crowded speakeasy, and Alice smiled as they approached.

She and Steve had been looking at real estate listings all day, since they had plans to officially move in together in a larger house later in the year. There'd be more room for Noodle to get himself into trouble, and enough space to maybe, some day, start a family. They had only talked a little about it, and they were both still quite busy with their various jobs, projects, and learning about the future, but Alice knew it was something they both wanted. The prospect was, frankly, one of the most terrifying and exciting things Alice had ever contemplated.

Morgan scrunched up her nose and laughed at something Steve said to her, and Alice smiled as she watched them.

Natasha and Pepper slid into their booth, and Steve leaned over.

"So, how're the Avengers going?" he asked Natasha, effectively breaking up the competition about uniforms happening in the corner.

Natasha sipped her violently pink cocktail. "You should know, since you have a woman on the inside," she said with an arched brow.

Steve smiled. "Alice takes operational security very seriously."

Nat glanced at Alice, who just smiled placidly. "If you say so. But yes, things are going well. We're really getting operations off the ground. A few new recruits, some of them enhanced, and we've got a few high-profile organisational ties set up which should make operations a bit smoother. Alice actually helped to secure the Austrian and German votes for us to form an alliance with NATO."

Sam raised his eyebrows at Alice. "That was you?"

"Apparently as a former double agent working against Germany, my political opinion now carries a lot of weight," Alice said evenly.

"It must be hard to tell you no," Pepper laughed.

Natasha tipped her chin at Steve. "And how are things going in retirement? Have you joined any bingo clubs yet?"

"No," Steve defended himself. Alice sipped her drink and decided not to mention the fact that they'd been going to an old folks social meetup at the community centre on the weekends, where bingo was a _very _popular activity. "Actually, I've been pretty busy."

Steve began telling them about the various nonprofits and organizations he was involved with, which did indeed take up a lot of his time since he'd committed himself to so many causes. Last weekend he had spoken at an event for a veterans nonprofit, and next month he'd been invited to the UK to speak as an advocate at a human trafficking conference.

Alice had gone with him to a few of these events either as a fellow advocate or as his date, and she had seen him speak. She had to admit he was scarily good at it. He showed up, charmed them all with the smiles and the old-fashioned talk, before switching tacks to speak calmly, clearly and empathetically about the issue until his audience couldn't _not _sign up or donate or advocate or whatever else he asked them to do. He'd been wasted all these years giving battle speeches. Alice kept telling him he should run a toastmasters club.

"And have you two actually decided where you want to have your party next year?" Bucky asked when Steve took a breath. Bucky had done something to his hair, so it was artfully spiky and messy. Alice smiled as she imagined him googling how to do his hair in the future.

"It's not a _party_," Steve protested. "It's a…" he searched for the words. "A ceremony where we exchange vows and then celebrate with our friends and family."

"So, a wedding," Sam summarised.

"Well we're _already_ married."

"So it's not a wedding," Bucky added.

Steve scowled, and Alice laughed and leaned over to help him out. "It's an unlabeled event where you're required to dress up nicely, and in return we'll be providing an open bar. How about that?"

"I'm in," Tony said, bouncing a laughing Morgan on his knee.

"And no," Alice said, "we haven't decided where to do it yet. We thought about Europe somewhere, or maybe Wakanda, but since we'd like all of you lot there plus my extended family and Jilí, travel might be a little difficult."

"You could do it on another planet," Nat suggested. "Thor likes you."

Steve waved a hand. "Our last wedding was questionably legal, so we want to make sure we dot all the i's this time. So we won't be out to set any inter-planetary records."

"Get married at my house!" Morgan piped up, frizzy haired and bright eyed.

Steve and Alice smiled at her enthusiasm. But then Alice glanced over at Pepper to see her with a considering look on her face. Pepper met Tony's eyes for a moment, then looked up.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea," she said, looking from Steve to Alice. "If you wanted, we would be very happy to host an… unlabelled event." She smiled. "There's plenty of space, a nice lake view, and I know plenty of caterers and event planners from the old days. Some of them still like us even after all the stunts Tony pulled at SI events."

"What did daddy do?" Morgan asked, but Tony distracted her with a bag of snacks he'd produced from his jacket.

Alice's eyebrows lifted and she looked across at Steve. His eyebrows were raised too, but he seemed thoughtful.

"You're sure?" Steve asked.

"No, we routinely make offers we don't intend to honor," Tony said with a roll of his eyes as he helped Morgan open her snacks.

Alice and Steve met each other's eyes. A moment later, they smiled.

"Well, thank you," Alice said. "We'll… let you know."

"Need me to put you in contact with a wedding dress boutique?" Pepper added.

"Oh, I'm… actually making my own dress," Alice replied. The others all looked over in surprise, and she went pink. "It's a steep learning curve, but I used to help out a lot back at the old tailor shop, and… I don't know, using the skills my stepfather taught me feels like a nice way to… have my parents with me."

Steve's warm hand landed on hers on the table, and she entwined her fingers with his.

"That's lovely," Pepper said softly.

"Well the dress might be terrible, but oh well. It'll be better than my _last _wedding outfit."

Sam frowned. "What-"

"I was dressed like a boy, and Steve was in uniform. We were both absolutely filthy, too."

"So kind of a low bar," Tony commented.

Alice smiled, and a few moments later they went back to discussing all their various projects and events. The speakeasy grew slowly more and more crowded - apparently word had gotten out about tonight's program. The room was warm, filled with sounds of clinking glasses and the lilts and rumbles of dozens of conversations.

Finally, as Alice doubled over laughing at Bucky's imitation of Sam arguing with a bank robber on their last mission, Steve's hand landed on Alice's shoulder.

"Hey, I think you're up."

She glanced over her shoulder to see the sound guy waving at her from the stage.

Alice took in a sharp breath and glanced back around to see Steve eyeing her. "Promise me you'll mercy kill me if it's terrible."

"Absolutely not," he said fondly. He kissed her cheek. "You'll be great. Picture them all in their underwear."

Alice wrinkled her nose at the thought, but his words had taken the edge off her panic. "Love you," she murmured.

"Love you," Steve whispered back.

Alice slipped out of her seat, flashed them all a nervous smile ("Good luck!" they called), and then pushed through the crowd to the stage. People began to part before her, melting away and turning to watch her pass. She sensed eyes on her. She measured her pace, not wanting to rush herself, and it all felt… slow. Dreamlike. The closer she got to the stage, the quieter the room became, like a rushing river slowly trickling to a stop.

Alice rose up the stairs to the stage, nodding to the sound guy who'd beckoned her, and the hem of her green dress brushed the wooden steps.

She had dressed up for the evening, but had purposefully not worn white. She wasn't opposed to wearing something like her old performance dress again, but… these things took time. Sure, the dress had been Otto's idea in the first place, but he'd chosen it as a lure and an icon for the Nazis - the pure white, otherworldly Siren.

_You get to the top by giving them exactly what they've always wanted, but have been too afraid to ask for._

That dress had been drenched in Otto's blood, had seen her through her heart-rending escape from the Gestapo and had flown with her as she plummeted off the roof and into another world. It was too much.

So tonight she had chosen a more modern dress: high cut, sleeveless, the skirt short at the front and long at the back in an asymmetrical style that made her feel like she was wearing a train. The dark green cloth with its fine lace overlay made her pinned-up hair look almost white.

And this was _her _choice. Not a dress designed for a tactical purpose, just one that had caught her eye and made her feel nice. An important choice, especially for what she was about to do.

Finally Alice set foot on the stage. There had only been four steps, but it seemed to take a hundred years for her to climb them. In many ways, it had.

Alice's shoes seemed deafening as she walked over to the microphone stand. She touched it as if to reassure herself with the feel of cool metal that it was really there, and then looked up.

The speakeasy seemed a lot more packed from up here. Dozens of expectant faces looked back at her, and she noticed more than one phone pointed her way. Her gaze darted over to the Avengers' booths, where Steve gazed steadily back at her and the others smiled encouragingly. Morgan had climbed up onto the back of the booth to get a better view.

Alice glanced over to the band, who'd set up on the other side of the stage, and nodded her hello. She'd met them earlier.

When she looked back out at her audience, she drew in a breath. "Hello everyone," she said, almost flinching at the sound of her voice magnified out across the bar's speakers. There was a general murmur of _hello _back. "This is my first time back performing in public, so please forgive me if I'm a little rusty."

That was met by a few low chuckles.

Alice smiled, twisted her fingers into her skirt behind her back to work off some of her nervous energy, then took another breath. "I thought for a long time about what my first song tonight should be. There are so many close to my heart: songs I've written for the people I love, others I learned from my family, even ones I used to lead with when I was on tour in Europe." She frowned. "When I was touring as a Nazi."

The room went very quiet. Stillness radiated across her audience and up to Alice.

She swallowed. "The song I've chosen is… much bigger than me. It's a song that was so loved that it was popular on _both _sides of the war, loved by Germans, Americans, British, French, Russians, and so many more. And also, occasionally, sung by me. It's a song about love. Not a grand, sweeping, dramatic love, but a tender, quiet one. It's based on a poem about a soldier hoping to be with his love again. It is, at its heart, a song about hope. It's no surprise it came to be sung and loved by so many."

She saw softness in the faces looking back at her.

"I used this song against the Nazis," she told them, lifting her chin. "Thanks to my blabber-mouthed husband" - laughter broke out again - "many of you will know how I used to put codes in the lyrics when I performed."

Alice drew in another shaky breath, then shifted her feet. That was all she'd really planned to say. But… she felt she had more honesty to give. And maybe it was too much for a single performance at a speakeasy, maybe these people just wanted to hear her sing, and enjoy themselves. But she suddenly knew that she would not be able to sing a note if she did not say this.

"There was a time when the very thought of performing made me feel ill." She saw Steve's brows draw together. "When the only German words I heard were filled with hate, and violence." She rolled her shoulders back. "But I met Germans and Austrians who stood _against _fascism, who protected those who couldn't protect themselves and who valued life, and kindness. Many of those people were killed for their kindness. This song is for all those people, because they deserved to know that their homeland was not lost to hatred. They deserved to know that I loved them." She held her gaze for a moment or two, then glanced over the band again, and with the briefest of nods the pianist struck up a melody.

Alice closed her eyes, drew in a breath and began to sing.

She had sung plenty of times since she'd arrived back in the future. But never in front of more than five people. Never like this, with the bright lights on her and dozens of eyes watching. She'd forgotten the way a room held its breath in those moments before she opened her mouth, and the way it seemed to sigh when she sang her first few notes.

She sang the first verse of _Lili Marlene _in German. She switched to English and repeated the first verse, then changed back into German again. She'd never sung like this before and it felt right, like the song had been made whole.

She had been afraid that everything would be different without Bragi's watchful presence. Ever since her first public performance at that Brooklyn church as a child he had been watching, listening, there for every performance and note.

But as she built the song with her words and her voice she saw her audience melt for her. None of them moved, or spoke. She saw how she had lured them in with her voice and lulled them, using the song to soften their hurts, nurture their hope, and promise them a future. By the second verse, at least one person was weeping.

She had practiced for tonight but it had been so long since she'd formally trained. She picked up on a few imperfections and flaws in her performance, but she did not let them shake her confidence. Because this was the easiest thing in the world: not quite like having a conversation, not quite like weeping or loving or grieving. Music was something entirely else, and it came from a deep-down part of herself that she should have known she didn't have to fear.

Alice didn't dare look back up at the Avengers until she reached the final few lines: first in German, then in English.

"_Wenn sich die spaeten Nebel drehn_, _Werd' ich bei der Latern steh'n._"

"_When the late mists swirl, I'll be standing there by the lamplight._"

Her eyes fell on her friends. Pepper and Sam were both crying. Tony listened with his chin propped on his fist and an uncharacteristically solemn look on his face, as Morgan rested her head on his shoulder. Natasha's expression had not changed save for maybe a glimmer of depth in her eyes. Bucky sat motionless, his eyes closed, and she knew that he was thinking of another time, listening to her voice on the radio.

"_Wie einst, Lili Marlene, wie einst, Lili Marlene._"

"_As before, Lili Marlene, as before, Lili Marlene_."

Steve did not look as if he had breathed for the whole song. He stared back at Alice, his eyes shining, and when the last utterance of Lili Marlene's name rolled off her lips he broke into a brilliant smile. The sight of it knocked the breath out of her chest, and she felt glad that she had waited until she'd finished singing to look at him.

And then the room erupted into applause.

Alice sagged slightly, letting their cheers wash over her and buoy her up for a moment. She took in a shaky breath, smiling, and closed her eyes for a moment to stop herself from bursting into tears. She felt, for a moment, the weight of all the people she'd left behind. Then she opened her eyes and saw the people she had found.

So she looked over to the band, grinning, and with another nod they launched back into song.

Alice performed for close to two hours.

She sang victory songs, songs she'd written both before and during the war, songs for Steve, songs Matthias had taught her, songs her mother had listened to on the radio, songs Tom had loved and that Bucky had danced to. She even performed a short operetta piece. She sang her favorite songs from this new world she'd been dropped into, which seemed to delight her audience to no end. After the gravity of her first song the tone lightened, and soon enough more than half of the people in the speakeasy had stood up out of their booths and flooded into the dance area.

Bucky was there, showing off his dance moves and charming the room, and Sam attempted to one-up him, each of them laughing riotously. Morgan stood on Tony's shoes as he danced her around in a circle near their booth, and Pepper and Natasha watched with a smile.

As Alice reached the final song of her set, feeling delightfully worn out, she wrapped one hand around the microphone stand and smiled down at her audience.

"_Say it's only a paper moon, sailing over a cardboard sea._" The band had requested to speed up the tempo, making the song a little more upbeat, and Alice felt the warm burn of satisfaction in her gut at the feeling. She didn't have to stand still and graceful like she was used to, so she allowed herself to move to the bouncy piano rhythm. "_But it wouldn't be make believe, if you believed in me._"

She glanced down. Steve stood at the bottom of the stage, smiling up at her, and she just knew that as soon as she had taken her final bow she would dance her way down the stage steps and into his arms.

Alice basked in the joy she felt exuding throughout the room, and realized that this was something she was finally, _finally _allowed to enjoy. She had a room full of people dancing and smiling at each other to the sound of her voice, and the music she'd made. And she'd done it for them. She saw her friends dotted throughout the room, enjoying themselves: friends who had become a part of her life. A part of her future.

She saw thousands of potential futures before her, all subject to her own choice. No war, no secrecy, no fear.

And her husband waiting just a few feet away, with a smile on his face.

As the song built to those final few timeless moments before silence rolled back in Alice thought, strangely, of a moment from her childhood: she had been practicing her 'siren song' after school, curious about their lesson on the Odyssey. As she'd experimented with wordless, rolling melodies she had contemplated the promise of knowledge the sirens offered, and wondered if the sailors fell in love with the singer, or the song. Steve had found her, startling her, and she had asked him if she had entranced him with her song.

As Alice's last note faded away she thought that Steve might be the only man in the world immune to her song. Because even though every eye was on Alice as the spell broke and the thundering swell of applause washed over her, Steve just looked back at her, meeting her eyes, and she knew that he'd be hers in a world without sound or song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was sparked out of my love for history, female spies, and old-timey music, and became so much more. It's been a long, beautiful journey and I've loved sharing Alice's story with you all. It's been such a pleasure taking you on this twisty, angsty tale of spies and songs and superheroes, and as you can see I'm an absolute sucker for a happy ending. Thank you for reading, I can't express enough how wonderful it is having readers like you. Thank you for your comments and excitement, for your questions and theories, and a special shoutout to Sadie Kane, my Reader in Chief and dear friend. Thank you also to lea_sommerregen for your endlessly kind German language, culture, and music support (and amazing enthusiasm and love for this story), I would be just some Australian with Google Translate behind me if it weren't for you. Vielen Dank!
> 
> Don't forget the [moodboard](https://www.pinterest.co.uk/ehollis0871/the-siren/) and [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmyEFm4fuH4p0qf3_NdQOQAiG9x82GOVH) for this story.
> 
> As some of you know, my next project is going to be my Wyvern AU - I'm really looking forward to it and I think you'll all enjoy it. (As a brief synopsis, it's going to be a 'what if Maggie was never kidnapped by the Winter Soldier' story). So follow my author profile and hang tight!
> 
> Finally, if you take anything away from The Siren, let it be these two things:
> 
> 1) History is important. History is the stories we tell about ourselves and about people long-distant in the past (who might be more similar to ourselves than we realise), and how we tell those stories says a lot about us, as well as them. History is also not as static as we might imagine. New voices and new stories can be found even hundreds of years after the fact. Don't bother with dates and names and all that - focus on the stories.
> 
> 2) It is important to do what you can to stand against those who try to oppress, dehumanise, and divide. It's scary. But even though you might not be able to strap on a Vibranium shield, or use your singing skills to infiltrate a corrupt government, you can do something.
> 
> Love you guys x


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